A Preposterous Portfolio of Parodies: Free Selections

A Preposterous Portfolio of Parodies Free Selections from Spoofs of The Hobbit, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Star Trek and More by Valerie Estelle Frankel Copyright 2014 Valerie Estelle Frankel Smashwords Edition Discover other titles by Valerie Estelle Frankel at Smashwords.com: Henry Potty and the Pet Rock Henry Potty and the Deathly Paper Shortage An Unexpected Parody: The Unauthorized Spoof of The Hobbit

Contents Introduction An Unexpected Parody: The Unauthorized Spoof of The Hobbit How Game of Thrones Will End: The Influences Driving the Show and All the Paths It May Take Henry Potty and the Man in the Iron Pants: A Star Trek: TNG Crossover The Terrifying Castle of Terror: An Original Generic Fantasy And Introducing…The Farce-ians of the Galaxy, Coming 2015

Introduction What’s the only thing better than parodies? Free parodies! Along with plenty of commentary on pop culture (usually serious, unfortunately) I’m the author of roughly four parodies (sorry about the confusion on the count, but I parodied Harry Potter Book 1, then book 7, then 2-6 – published separately and also in the Harry Potter Special Edition as they’re quite short so it’s somewhat messy). Following this came my parody of the first Hobbit movie – much more straightforward, though to this day there’s no part 2. I’m publishing Harry Potter excerpts in a separate free volume, but included in this is one of them (killing two flying chickens with one stone, as it’s a Star Trek crossover). I’m also including the first chapter of An Unexpected Parody, along with its painful four prologues. There’s the silly bits from the published ebook How Game of Thrones Will End: The Influences Driving the Show and All the Paths It May Take (Thought Catalog 2014) and an original story parodying all manner of generic fantasy. In “The Terrifying Castle of Terror,” our heroes quest for a solid gold statue, having already obtained the prefect turkey sandwich. This finishes with a small preview from my Guardians spoof: The Farce-ians of the Galaxy, Coming 2015. Happy reading!

An Unexpected Parody: The Unauthorized Spoof of The Hobbit Prologue the First: Fandom Rising

It began with the writing of the great book. In the Beginning, the Dawn of Time, round about 1936, the Great Creator set about to make a marvelous work that would last throughout all the generations. And lo! He wrote a children’s novel and it was beloved. Twenty years passed. And the seeds of his planting grew into a mighty trilogy.

Three books were given to the Fans, with many appendices to boot, and from them sprang a mighty genre. Bookstore shelves sagged with the weight of many fantasy series and brave heroes toiled to the ends of the earth and beyond seeking signed first editions. Then the Trekkies came.

And lo! Their society lasted long and prospered. The great franchises followed on: the might of the Force rose, and begat a cult of followers in hooded robes. And the two tribes mingled and begat a race of Monty-Python-quoting, sneaker-wearing folk who spent their days designing humorous t-shirt slogans. They loathed the fresh air and hid from the sun in their parents’ basements where the big screen was anyway. United they built a mighty empire and named themselves the Geeks. Their realm thrived. Throve? Thrived. The wise among them gathered to meet in cities across the earth, and held mighty debates and sometimes swapmeets.

Many years passed.

Decades later, during the Second Rising of the Force, the Boy Wizard rose up. Marked by a lightning scar and wise in an odd tongue of Latin, Greek, and random additions of Hawaiian, he taught his followers to spend their gold freely, and consumerism swelled under his reign. With him came the midnight releases, and wide-eyed children, cranky from the late hour, uttered the sacred words “Have you read my fanfic?” and thus were converted. Their conferences swelled with screaming fangirls, and many other heroes followed, riding dragons and Greek-speaking pegasi and magical polar bears. Mighty temples of glory soared into the heavens, with amusement park rides, lunchboxes, and trading cards.

But the doom of men is their greed, and movie producers have it worst of all. In their dark halls, deep in the heart of Hollywood, they schemed. For, they reasoned, if a trilogy could control the world, how much more might seven movies, or eight, or nine!

Eight films were offered to the Boy Wizard, and many of his followers lost their way through the tangle and were cast aside. Three additional films were given to the followers of the Force, and lo! they were a letdown. Then another film franchise came, and it was not good, for as fans protesteth, vampires are not meant to sparkle. Then the power of the Force was given to the King of Mice, and many fans did tremble with sorrow. One by one, the free lands fell into despair.

But then a light shined anon from the skinny isle of New Zealand, and the halflings strode forth, in twelve hours of Extended Edition glory, yea, even with bonus features and cast interviews. The saga was quoted on every screen and the seedling of a series, long sacred to the Geeks but unknown to many others, ascended into the gloried halls of pop culture. Elves crowded the renaissance fairs and joy was heard throughout the land.

But the hearts of Men are easily corrupted. Another franchise had grown too powerful, too rich. A further duology was proposed and deep in the dark heart of Hollywood, it began to form.

But they were all of them deceived.

It swelled into a trilogy and nine hours were given unto the Geeks, to say nothing of the DVD extras. The halflings’ town in New Zealand was rebuilt, sturdier than before, so the creators might make of it a theme park, and the sheep were driven off. And the Geeks were divided: some clutched the new offering as a treasure and vowed to give it all their devotion as they had its parents, even to the buying of Denny’s meals to get the trading cards. And other Geeks spoke against the first of the films and complained that the rock giants and hedgehogs did not delight them–for it was that they stopped the movie dead.

And thus the fandom was sundered. Among the unsatisfied was a smaller tribe called the Nitpickers, and they were the most dismayed. For, they reasoned, no great creator had the right to fashion rabbit-sledges and elf salads, which were a perversion of the Great Source of All. And thus the sundered fandom did battle in the land of Cyberspace, with the Nitpickers the loudest combatants, for they knew their cause was just.

This is a book for all of them.

Prologue the Second: Bumble and Fumble Tell All

“My dear Fumble, it’s time I told you a story,” Bumble Baglunch said. He was seated by a roaring fire deep in his halfling hole which had the dual purpose of warming his outstretched furry toes and burning the last of his yellowed trading cards.

His young nephew Fumble Baglunch bounced on his rocking troll. “Ooh, ooh, I wanna hear about Aladdin!” The two were halflings, about which more will be revealed soon enough, so let it suffice to say that both were no taller than three feet, and were dressed in tacky red and green like Christmas elves, from their waistcoats to their pantaloons, as halflings need no shoes on their furry feet, though they get very annoyed when someone smashes a glass. Both halflings were hanging out on the set of the other trilogy, waiting for the new story to start.

“No, Fumble, not that kind of story. This one is important because it is true.” Bumble hesitated. “Mostly.”

“Oh.” Fumble’s face fell. “Can we do this later? I have homework.”

“No. Now sit.” Fumble did, loudly crunching on a bag of Halfling Chow. Bumble gazed up above Fumble’s head toward the movie audience. “Did you go to the bathroom yet? You probably should. We’re gonna be here a while.”

After an embarrassing interval, he began. “Once, in a land so rural not even a halfling would want to visit it, stood the Kingdom of Ared’dôr, so named for the tall gray doors, for you see the dwarves were colorblind. Their wealth was not in fabric dying (and lucky for them!) but instead in the treasure of the earth: gems, gold, and fossil fuels. Thristathiklethorrth, He Whose Name Makes the Tongue Twist, was their king, and Torn, his grandson, bore the title Hot Prince of the Dwarves, though his heart was ever divided between his duty to his people and an acting career.

“The dwarves grew wealthy selling barrels of oil to greedy, polluted countries at a high markup, and were known far and wide for their snap-on charm bracelets. Great towers were built and strip malls opened and their kingdom prospered. They treated with the elves and sold them a full brass band of instruments, all of them finely crafted. But the elves discovered that tubas made them sound foolish and the dwarves refused to give them even a base refund. The dwarves built ever larger SUV’s and drove them even to the supermarket just across the street, regardless of consequences to the ever-browning air. They turned the thermostat way up and threw away towers of Styrofoam and plastic bags each day. Still, the dwarves flourished and grew ever richer under the mountain.

“All this is what brought their great doom.”

“They ran from a dragon puppet?”

“No!” “Then why are you waving it about?”

“I’m using puppetry to enhance my story. It’s an ancient and noble art.”

“Some of the popsicle sticks are still gummy!”

“Nonetheless. May I resume my tale?”

Fumble made a rude noise. “I’m not stopping you.”

“The pines on the mountain exploded into kindling, and only a few forward-thinking dwarves gathered up the splinters for an alternate fuel source. The dragon known in the old tongue as Erpolushun, or in the common tongue, Smog, had arrived from the wintery north where men

huddled in their snowbound huts and spoke Old German. With his terrible breath, like old sauerbraten and burned schnitzel, he flamed the city of Snail, curled helplessly below the Lame Old Mountain. The dwarves blew their tubas with all their might, but this only enraged the creature further and blocked roads with landslides. He laid waste the town and turned toward the Lame Old Mountain, for he knew the dwarves were hoarding the fossil fuels. These the dragon craved above all, for they offered a pleasant laxative effect.

“As he strode into the towering halls–” “Wait, why do little dwarves need incredibly high ceilings like that?”

“Because the hiho song sounds best with an echo.”

“Oh.” “As I was saying, he strode into the dwarves’ fair halls, and breathed his ferocious breath upon the folk who dwelt there. The stink of sauerbraten, delivered at about 800 Celsius, was too much, and many dwarves melted on the spot. Only smoking boots remained, as is traditional on these occasions. The dwarves fled, for they knew that their strip malls and SUV’s were lost.

“Run! Run for your lives!” Prince Torn cried. Around him, dwarf men and even the dwarf women, usually too ugly to be seen in daylight, were racing to safety. “Look!” one cried. “It’s Director Jack Peterson, and he’s running too. Even he knows we cannot survive!” And all of them wept with despair.

“The elves looked down from the hillside, where their king was riding a moose who looked so embarrassed to be ridden by stately elves that there was, frankly, nothing to parody. “‘Help us!’ Torn cried. ‘Help us,’ cried the Hot Prince of the Dwarves a second time and a third. He considered a fourth, but decided the heck with that–he had some pride left. But the elves were offended by the tuba incident and by the SUV pollution the dwarves had been churning up. The elves turned their backs (and one moose butt) and rode away.

“The young dwarf prince found work where he could, as a ditch digger and street sweeper, then after he was discovered, in a dwarf cabaret. But he never forgave, especially for the pink sequined tights. Was he the destined hero chosen by fate to reclaim his lands one day? The odds looked slim.

“Of course, years later, fate decided I would take part in their adventure…”

“Fate? Isn’t that just what lazy writers use to pave over plotholes?”

Bumble flung a dishtowel at his errant nephew, who was already halfway to the round door of their shared burrow.

“Great story, Uncle Bumble,” Fumble called.

“Wait, aren’t you gonna stay and be in the movie?”

“Thanks, no. I think I’ll go find a better one.” And Fumble was gone.

The readers squirmed with discontent. Thicker and faster the prologues kept pouring over them, like sludgy custard on the fires of their enthusiasm, delaying the moments before the story might actually commence.

Had the original book begun with the plot? Well, that seemed a silly, old-fashioned contrivance, the author reasoned. Surely more prologues were better. Think how delighted fans would be when to their amazement, something actually happened! And when one got a chilly reception, it could, of course, be split with a dwarf battle axe and thrown on the fire. Thus, the prologues, like a road, went ever on.

Prologue the Third (Really? Third? Honestly?): Gonedaft the Grizzled

It was a bad time to be a wizard. No one seemed to need advice anymore. Gonedaft the Grizzled, Wizard Extraordinaire, sat back in the dwarf pub, allowing the thud of hurling axes and the horrid jangle of dwarf folk music to wash over him. Overhead, someone was swinging off the chandelier, hobnailed boots turning the taller windows into occasional bursts of glass. Iron helmets were hurtling through the air, often with the heads inside. Gonedaft sighed. Even the cultural ambiance failed to excite him.

“You Gonedaft?”

Upon noting that the bartender in front of him was A. Missing any law enforcement badges and B. Holding out a drink Gonedaft acknowledged with a nod that Gonedaft might just well be him.

“He sent it over.”

Gonedaft turned to spy a dwarf sitting at the next table over, who gave him a hopeful nod. As Gonedaft glanced over the pink spangled tights and dwarf-forged ballet slippers, he reflected that he might be the wrong pronoun in this case. Although, on reflection, the dwarf seemed too good looking to be female. Though Gonedaft had fervently been hoping to the contrary, the dwarf came and joined him for a spell. So to speak. “Gonedaft the wizard?”

“I don’t know what you’ve heard–” “I am Torn, King who would be under the mountain if he had any choice about it.” Torn stood up on his chair, and his voice grew deep and soulful. “You see, once, in a land so rural not even a halfling would want to visit it, stood the kingdom of Ared’dôr–” “Stop right there, I just read the prologue.” Gonedaft eyed him. “Dwarf cabaret? Really?”

“It pays the bills.” Torn took off his tiny lavender tutu and blew his nose on it absently. “I had thought to settle down peacefully with my people. However, after being reminded what dwarf women look like, I realized I should attempt the quest and reclaim my homeland.”

Gonedaft sat back in his chair. “Let me get this straight. You’ve come to me in this heroes’ bar to tell me you’re the deposed heir to an ancient kingdom on a mission to reclaim your throne and slay the dragon, a pack of questors by your side, and you’ve figured all this out without a mysterious bearded wizard?”

Thorn blinked. “Why? Did I do this in the wrong order?”

“Oh, a bit,” said Gonedaft grouchily. “Heroes sorting themselves out without the help of ancient and all-discerning wizards? I’ll be out of a job by Thursday.”

“You could come with us,” Thorn suggested brightly. “There’s lots of good work in questing.

Slaying monsters with your awesomely arcane powers and so forth. And there's always die Cabaret.”

“And vanishing at the moment I’m most needed, so you must persevere on your own!”

Gonedaft added helpfully. “That’s a mentor’s number one job.”

“That and dying,” Thorn said a bit absently, not noticing how Gonedaft paled. “I’m looking for aid from the greatest powers of goodness in Renfair Earth. Are you with me?”

“Ah.” Gonedaft preened a little.

“But not the snooty elves. Or barbaric humans. And my own folk turned me down. I went to see the rangers, but they already have a deposed king with a cooler sword than mine.”

“So I’m the most powerful person you could find?”

“Since the wizard Sourman wasn’t home, yeah, pretty much.”

Gonedaft considered. “I suppose I could lend a staff. But I still want to start the story off properly. You know, show up at some little blighter’s house and tell him he’s destined for a great adventure.”

“I think that longship sailed with all the prologues.”

Gonedaft frowned. “Nonetheless…”

“You still could,” Thorn offered, with the hasty eagerness of one who sees his most powerful dragon-smiting weapon floating out the door in a haze of alcohol and disappointment. “It’s a quest, right? With casualties. A little dragon fodder never hurts.”

Gonedaft hesitated, gravely and thoughtfully.

“I’ll even throw in the funeral expenses.”

Gonedaft clinked a grimy mug against his. “It’s a deal. Tell me, how do you feel about the British?”

Prologue the Second, Part Two: More Bumble, More Fumble

In a hole in the ground, there was a basement. Above that was a hole, or rather another hole.

And the hole thing–er, whole thing–oh sod it all–” Bumble crossed out what he had been writing (and unconsciously dictating to himself loud enough to set off the neighbor’s cats) and replaced it with “I live in a hole.” He considered the next, nodded and smiled proudly. An entire sentence written. Upon further deep thought, he sharpened his pen and wrote below it, dictating all the while, “Here’s what a Halfling Hole looks like.”

“Uncle Bumble? I actually know what a Halfling hole…”

“Oh. I thought you’d left.”

“Bathroom.”

“Right.”

“So you’re writing this for me? I mean, I really know about the care and feeding of your standard halfling–” “Get out! Wait, is everything ready for my eleventy-hundredth birthday party? Crusts cut off? Wraps wrapped? Soufflés still poofed? Metal detectors on? Car gassed up?”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“No.” Bumble glanced involuntarily from his writing desk to the pile of five stuffed suitcases. “Not at all. Why?” “No reason.” Since Fumble was hardly the sharpest tool in the shed, and indeed, was near the bottom of the entire tool emporium in that respect, he wandered off and into another trilogy.

Without his irritating nephew about, Bumble continued to ramble, only occasionally remembering to write his narrative down.

In this very hole, a halfling lived, or rather, dwelt, for this was Long Ago in Days of Yore.

The halflings were one of many species in Renfair Earth, so called because everyone wore Middle Ages or Renaissance Fair garb at all times. “Middle Ages Earth” just lacked something in style somehow. It was a time and place where everyone relied on the laws of magic, not science…rather like Kansas.

His ancestors had named the hole Pápropläctik, or in the common language, Grocery Bag, so named for it lay in a cul-de-sac that resembled one of a halfling’s favorite containers. It was located in Halflingtonfordshire, which would someday be Britain, or at least its younger cousin New Zealand, thus accounting for the tea and scones halflings seemed to eat with every meal.

Halflings are merry folk, fond of the “pull my finger” joke, and whoopee cushions, and other subtle and inventive bits of humor. They enjoy puns and use them to great effectiveness. They often adorn themselves with waistcoats, sashes, little straw hats with ribbons, and other affronts to good taste, as they’ve been doing for close to an age now. In fact, they are descended from a series of improper relations between squirrels and gnomes, and spend their days baking creamfilled cookies in treehouse factories, though they prefer to live in the sides of hills, at least until the woodchopping for their ovens creates serious erosion.

They enjoy eating, and prefer twelve big meals a day when they can get them, to say nothing of crisps and popcorn in front of the television. They are quite fond of kippers, steak and kidney pie, mushy peas, lumpy gravy, and hunks of turnip, swede, and carrot in everything. As apparent by their cuisine, they have difficulty moving quickly, particularly after second breakfast or third lunch. They have many hobbies, from food preparation to eating to drinking, though they are no

rivals with dwarves for the last of these. Under duress, they will wash dishes, though this is reserved as a punishment for the slow-witted among them, who have managed to be last out the door.

In the old tongue, they are known as Léprékanns, in Old Norse as the Münchken or on occasion Lilliputians. In England, they are the small folk (though political correctness makes this term a hazard), in Indonesia they are known as H. floresiensis, and for those avoiding copyright entanglements, they are known simply as Halflings.

Bumble was in fact something beyond this: Since his mother was part fairy, and fairies are half angel, half demon, Bumble was actually not a halfling but a quarterling. This meant he was banned from the country club and some of the snootier halflings would blow their noses as they passed him on the street. Nonetheless, he considered himself a refined country gentleman and continued to spread this opinion around. Bumble was a quiet, retiring sort of halfling, content to spend his days searching elfBay for the latest in home entertainment systems and bootleg DVDs, from the time he was in diapers to the time he stopped wearing them around age fifty.

And it is there our story begins, back in the days of yore when Bumble was played by an actor who wasn’t a really old guy, for no more prologues were available for the moment.

Chapter 1: Welcome to Halflingtonfordshire

A gray-bearded wizard trudged up the hillside and Bumble watched him come. He wore a long grey bathrobe embroidered with sequins in hypnotizing, swirling letters that spelled mystic words in a dozen garbled languages and might or might not have been dirty. His sparkly pointed hat added about a yard to his height and boasted a fetching pom-pom on top, like an unsightly New Year’s creation. On his feet, he wore flip-flops of twine and cardboard. In short, he looked like a wizard, but one with sleeves full of doves and a hat full of Aces of Hearts. In fact, he was.

“Good morning,” said Bumble, who had no idea what he was in for.

The old wizard stared at him. “What do you mean? Do you mean to wish I’ll have a good morning or are you saying it’s a nice one? Or perhaps that you feel good on this exact morning.

Or maybe you are peddling Good Morning Breakfast Bars, and this is how you ease into the topic.”

“Geez. Pedantic much?” asked Bumble, wishing he’d never opened that jar of worms, or as he called them, pre-appetizers.

“I am rarely pedantic, for I am a wizard of great renown. In fact, I am Gonedaft the Grey, formerly known as Gonedaft the Grizzled, Gonedaft the Gadabout and Gonedaft of the Rainbow Tie-die that He So Can’t Pull Off.” For emphasis, he waved his staff, which was the curliest pool hook in all the land. A few sad sparks shot out the end.

“Gonedaft! You’re famous for dragging halfling kids off to parts unknown. They always come back wide-eyed and trembling with wild stories. Incidentally, aren’t you wanted by the town sheriff?”

Gonedaft eyed him. “I thought you’d be fat, middle-aged, and jolly. Where’s the fruity laugh? I heard your mother was part fairy.”

Bumble looked bored. “That scandal blew through town years ago. It was in the papers and everything. And I thought you’d look like a wizard, not an encyclopedia salesman who sleeps under hedges and was out late celebrating.”

Gonedaft tried again. “Harken to me, Halfling, for I’ve come to take you on a great adventure.”

“Ah. I know this one. I’m actually the heir to a far-distant throne, with great magics at my command that I’ve never even tried to use. But in fact I have an amazing destiny. And you’ve come to bring me my ancestor’s magical sword or glass slipper or something of the sort and whisk me away for training in battling blindfolded and finding my inner tiger and so on.”

Gonedaft blinked. “Quite a movie-watcher I see.”

“Indeed.” The jaded halfling’s expression suggested that there was no surprising him.

“In fact, you aren’t special at all–you’re a run-of-the mill halfling less exciting than a leftover turnip who’s never done anything more interesting than floss between his hairy toes each morning. You are the least magically-inclined person I’ve ever encountered. I’m fresh out of magic swords, and I doubt you could even find the willpower to lift one if I didn’t dunk it in melted cheese. However, I am offering you an adventure nonetheless.”

“Next are you gonna offer me some candy if I get into your carriage?”

“You might win great treasures. Or fame and renown. You might even–” here Gonedaft paused very dramatically indeed. “–be the star of a movie.”

“I was already in three.”

Gonedaft waved a hand dismissively. “Bit parts. And you weren’t in the middle one. Not even in the DVD extras.”

“Nonetheless. I don’t want any adventures, thank you.”

“Maybe I’ll consult with the Brownies then,” Gonedaft said, in a voice that suggested he regretted using such a cruel weapon. “They live across the road, yes?”

“Say hi for me. And do stop by if you’re passing through in eighty years or so. I’ll likely be dead by then. But I suppose you’ll look the same. I doubt you could get much more wrinkled.”

Gonedaft eyed him. “A polite halfling would invite me to tea around now. Tomorrow perhaps.”

Bumble met his glance squarely. “Perhaps he might. Good morning.” This last word was said with such quelling finality that Gonedaft felt no need to get pedantic again.

“Good morning. But I must warn you, you have not seen the last of me.”

“Say that again…to my newly acquired low-hanging chandelier!”

Bumble popped inside, and lowered his chandelier to the worst possible height for visiting Biggers, as he called them. Though he hoped he’d seen the last of the wizard, there was no point in taking chances.

Gonedaft, in his famous craftiness, began to spray-paint words on the door in a moment of petty vandalism, but Bumble dialed the cops, who soon ran him off.

That evening, Bumble had just finished flossing his toes and was settling into his bubble bath when he heard the 1812 overture chiming tinnily on his doorbell. Muttering to himself, he donned a silken dressing gown and opened the door. There, to his surprise, was a ticking bomb.

“Waaaaaaaaaaahh!” Bumble managed, frozen in place.

“Sorry, just my little joke!” a dwarf popped out from behind the doorframe where he’d been waiting to see if Bumble would soil himself (the dwarfish sense of humor is similar to the halfling one). He was festooned in crochet from head to toe: scarves, vests, earmuffs, and even a few antimacassars. “Bobbin, at your table.”

“My table? Don’t you mean my service?” Bumble knew all about how dwarves spoke from watching midnight wrestling on Channel Six. “Your table service maybe. He he.” Having inflicted the pun, Bobbin strode into Bumble’s house as if he owned it.

“Brother!” cried the loud voice of Noggin behind him. As a dwarf of superior intellect, it was his job to subtly drop bits of exposition on the quest. This dwarf apparently had no use for knitting, preferring instead to wear odd magnifying goggles with copper gears woven into his beard plaits. He was bald with odd mathematical symbols tattooed on his head (from when he’d run out of notepaper).

“Yes, you are!” Bobbin cried. “Thank you for supplying that fact to our readers!” The dwarves indulged in their classic head-butting to ensure that neither might have an advantage over the other in the brains department. Then they crowded into the halfling hole, trying not to trip over Bumble’s piles of autographed headshots, first editions, and movie replicas. Piles of dirt and dust were heaped on the quaint, old-fashioned furniture and memorabilia alike, slightly

muting the intensity of the decor. Halflings enjoy bright colors, and Bumble’s combination of stripes and checks, mostly in green, purple, and gold like a Mardi Gras display, was no exception. His rainbow of a patchwork dressing gown only compounded the effect. “Where are we, Laddie?” Bobbin wondered. “Badger’s hole in The Wind in the Willows?”

Noggin shook his head. “Too muddy for that. But perhaps I could invent a sort of primitive vacuum cleaner…”

Next came another pair, Hottie and Spottie, with perfect matching ponytails. Hottie was dreamboat handsome, with large soulful eyes that seemed to take up the entire space between his ears. Spottie’s face was more taken up with, well, spots. Soon on their heels were the rest of the dwarfish company.

“Let’s see,” said Gonedaft, striding into the room and tripping over Spottie. The others helped him to his feet and he continued as if nothing untoward had happened. “We have Bobbin and Noggin. Rover and Clover. Sloppy, Ploppy, and Frappe. Hottie and Spottie, of course. And Quaff, Sloth, and Ezekiel.”

“Ezekiel?” Bumble managed, still stunned by the sudden house guests. His silent alarm hadn’t even gone off.

“It’s from the Bible!” the tallest dwarf said importantly. Ezekiel’s beard drifted nearly to his toes, like one of those ancient prophets unacquainted with scissors. “No one told my da we were doing rhyming names, all right? You should see my cousins–seven of them, all named for attributes like goofy and dopey.”

Bumble found himself staring as Rover scratched vigorously behind one ear.

Sloppy laughed uproariously as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen, not noticing how much blood was oozing from the small axe in his head. “Rover’s half dog, Clover’s half leprechaun. Different mothers. In fact, we’re all siblings or cousins, or both at once you know.”

Rover and Clover nodded. Clover had a bright green hood with yellow shamrocks, while Rover’s looked more like a pair of floppy ears. Beside them, Quaff and Sloth were bristling with weapons, spikes, studs, and other shiny metal bits.

Gonedaft tried to step further into the room, and this time wanged his head on the chandelier.

He let out a faint groan while Hottie and Spottie cooed about what a wise and perceptive wizard he was. He stood, whacked his head harder, and went down once more.

Meanwhile, Ploppy, who had a face that was puffed like Popeye’s and dented like Popeye’s would have been after a dozen spinach-related brawls, whacked Sloppy on the head, sending the axe blade a bit deeper. Sloppy didn’t seem to notice. “Move it, bro. Or cousin. Or half-uncleonce-removed. Whichever. You’re, like, blocking the way to the grub.”

“Food? Oh. Yes. Well, I suppose I could order from the curry take-away…” Bumble began.

It was too late. The dwarves had already found the pantry.

Bumble’s larder spewed forth cottage loaves, stilton, Yorkshire pudding, muffins, and crumpets. From the pudding closet came plumcake, treacle tart, apple dumplings, and about thirty kinds of custard. They soon discovered his bomb shelter with its year’s supply of canned goods, and immediately reduced it to a day or two’s supply, if that person ate less than a halfling at least.

What followed was a maelstrom of mastication, food fights, and odd Germanic sing-alongs, all with beer steins thumping on the table. After the fourth round, there was more splashing than actual quaffing, dropping much of the beer into their beards to be thriftily saved for later.

Traditional dwarf beer tasted of battery acid, and dwarf ale of chipmunk leavings. Halfling wine was a notable step up.

Bumble, crouched in the corner and sadly watching the vanishing of an entire day or two of his supplies, marveled much at the dwarves, from their habits to their language. Dwarves are known for their strength and they have fierce tempers, owing to the fact that everyone goes around mentioning how short they are, whereas they know that they are the perfect height and everyone else is too tall. Dwarves, it is said, wear the weight of history on their massively stalwart shoulders, whereas elves tend to coast over most of it, only tuning in every thousand years or so, and halflings don’t tend to look outside their boroughs or even read the newspaper.

But for the dwarf, it’s like being at the pointy end of an upside-down pyramid, with the immense density of ancestral anger, duty, honor, and so forth pressing on their shoulders. This of course is why they are built more compactly than willowy elves or gangly humans.

When Sloppy came over to fill his mug, Bumble eyed the axe sticking out of his head. “Have you had a terrible accident?”

“Oh, yes, I just spilled porridge on my coat. And your couch. Kind of you to notice.”

Bumble dropped the matter, though he was nearly certain the blade hadn’t been in the appendices. “Why is it that you don’t speak dwarfish except when you’re cursing?”

Sloppy laughed and poured the entire contents of a mug down his gullet and burped heavily enough to shake his entire body. “Ah. We were once a proud and noble people. Only, like many of our youth, we couldn’t afford proper dwarf school, and learned it all on the streets.”

“How did you survive?”

Ploppy winked at Sloppy. “We totally became a circus act. Want to see our plate throwing?”

They began a delicate and delightful hurling of dishes through the air, perfectly in rhythm with their uproarious singing.

Quaff and Sloth got out the trough To fetch a pail of water Quaff hates washing stuff And said hey enough And smashed all the cups right after At that lyric, a few dishes dribbled to the ground.

Up got the dwarves, and sold replica swords On Elfbay and shopping networks Profits soared And the fans adored, And they replaced the dishes but didn’t learn rhyme or meter.

As they regaled Bumble, it was clear that they’d been charming singing performers, at once soulful and melodious. As it turned out, they were less than successful jugglers. It was clear, in fact, how Sloppy had acquired the axe. The satisfying wobble of stacked plates was soon eclipsed by the musical clink of smashed crockery.

“My commemorative movie glassware!” Bumble shrieked.

Gonedaft scowled. “When did commemorative movie glassware become so important to you?

“Are you kidding? They’re worth thousands!”

“Despite your fixation with the trivialities of life, I think you would do well to come with us.

Destiny says–” “Destiny is a word writers use to pave over plotholes. What’s the real reason?”

Gonedaft hesitated, and then leaned in and beckoned Bumble closer. “I saw your satellite dish from the road.”

“Yes?” Gonedaft poked his belly (which was soft, though not reaching santaclausian proportions).

“You seem like a sedentary fellow, lots of free time in your bachelor quarters. Watch a lot of television, do you?”

“Well, yes,” Bumble said, surprised. Most wizards questing for their chosen one never seemed to have used a channel clicker before.

“Collect comic books? Autographed headshots? Action figures?”

“Yes,” Bumble said meekly. Collectables were all the rage in Halflingtonfordshire.

“Avid gamer?”

“Sure.”

“Know how quest stories work?”

The other shoe dropped. (Halflings know of shoes; they’re just not terribly interested). “Ah. I see.” Gonedaft pointed up the stairs. Several dwarves had torn down strips of wallpaper to create a battle plan for fighting Erpolushun. It seemed to consist of a big mountain fortress and little figures running up the side of it towards the main entrance. One dwarf had sketched the dragon blowing a gust of flame down the entire mountainside, with beautifully artistic swirls of red ketchup and yellow mustard against the black and white page. “Ah.” Gonedaft gazed into Bumble’s beady eyes. “You are to be the voice of common sense. When there is danger, you will run and hide. When there is a dark tunnel, you will announce you won’t be going down it. You will squeal and flee and beg and humiliate yourself on a daily basis, all in the name of pacifism.”

Bumble considered. “I can do that.” He paused. “Are you saying these dwarves have no common sense?” He glanced at the dwarves. Clover was juggling knives. Rover was hurling them at his brother with no regard for the broken windows he kept shattering by mistake. Then he was jumping through the glass to fetch them. Frappe was attempting to eat a cheese bigger than his own head. “Wow. Are you sure, though? I mean, I’m not one of those ruggedly handsome heroes, threadbare yet gleaming with nobility through his well-worn leathers, teeth glinting like diamonds, with a commanding gift of leadership that would make women swoon and men cross the earth to be his subjects. Probably just as well, though. We really covered that in the other trilogy.”

Suddenly, all voices went quiet. Outside, thunder thundered even though the day was cloudless. The birds stilled. All Bumble’s jam jars came to life momentarily and performed a stately elf dance. Then Torn Teepeeshield walked in.

He was ruggedly handsome, threadbare yet gleaming with nobility through his well-worn leathers, teeth glinting like diamonds, with a commanding gift of leadership that would make women swoon and men cross the earth to be his subjects. His eyes were sharp and clear, his beard was black and free of foodstains. He was King of the Dwarves, proving that a stately nobility and shining teeth will always beat an economic plan and resume full of experience. He gazed impassively at the dwarves, then Gonedaft, then finally Bumble.

“So this is the Halfling,” said Torn.

“You said it, you said the movie title,” squeaked Spottie. “This moment must be significant!”

Torn eyed him from head to toe. “So it is. It was foretold: Once the original trilogy makes millions upon millions, once the Boy Wizard and the Sparkly Vampire have finished their franchises–then has come the time to return to Renfair Earth. And return we must: The white dragon stole my city and my Beegshinee’gem Stone and my rare collection of dwarfish etchings!

We must reclaim our land!”

“Ared’dôr!”

“Ared’dôr!”

“Ared’dôr!”

“Eh? I thought we called it Lonely Mountain,” Bobbin said.

One of the others cuffed him. “Shaddup!”

Torn nodded. “Yes, Ared’dôr may not have had the art scene…or running water…but it was ours. It was built with the finest child labor–all the children Rumpelstiltskin and the other elves managed to cart off. Elf and reindeer labor too. I want my home back…even more than I want revenge. Or the treasure. But I want those too. I’m so torn!” A look of terrible angst clouded his face.

“We know, we know,” the other dwarves chorused.

“But we shall prevail! Even though there’s only fifteen of us. Even though most of us can’t even fight, even though Spottie’s–stop that! Really, it’s disgusting! As I was saying, we shall prevail. And Gonedaft is a wizard–he must’ve killed lots of dragons.”

“Ah, that. I was planning on more of a consulting role.”

Torn eyed Gonedaft. “That’s all?”

“Well, there’s this. Your father ‘gave’ it to me,” said Gonedaft, producing a large key on a long chain. Torn eyed it. “Pewter,” he said disparagingly, and hurled it into a corner.

The air around Gonedaft grew dark, as if he’d sprayed the air with a sooty mist, available at joke shops for a quite reasonable markup. “Do you know how long I’ve been hauling that thing around, trying to see if it opened anything valuable? Do not disdain the gift of a wizard, Torn Teepeeshield, for while I’m quick to anger, I’m not terribly subtle!”

Gonedaft sighed. His temper fizzled out as fast as it had come. Bumble sprayed some air freshener around, and the darkness dissipated. “And there’s this!” Gonedaft held up a map with a flourish. He didn’t get the response he’d expected.

“Th-the-the first word there is thee!”

“Gosh, it’s all pictures!”

“Look at the letters–they’re all different shapes.”

“I can’t read joined-up writing yet.”

“Where’s the X?” “It’s not a proper treasure map without an X!” Gonedaft sighed once more, and then a third time. All his quests seemed to involve recruiting from the shallow end of the gene pool. “And yet, if you look at the margin, there is a message here in dwarfish runes.

Whoever is reading this definitely has too much time on their hands, if theyre painstakingly translating this, or have learned Norse runes as a hobby. If you just have the ebook, fair enough.

Bumble squirmed close. He loved maps, and maintained an avid hobby of geocaching.

Further, he knew three dialects of dwarf, two of elvish, and several more obscure tongues like Welsh. “It doesn’t mean anything–it’s gibberish.”

“I know,” said Torn. “My grandfather was illiterate.”

Bumble turned it over. “Oh look, there’s something more written on the back. It’s the list of movies you could’ve been in instead of this one!”

Gonedaft, who was mildly loathing the fact that he was having to quest across Renfair Earth all over again, and at his age, grimaced. “Nonetheless, we’re stuck here. Well, Bumble, will you join our quest? You’re in the title, after all.”

“Sorry, I haven’t read the whole script. Quest for what?”

“To reclaim our gold from the dragon known in the old tongue as Erpolushun, or in the common tongue, Smog.”

He blinked. “I already fight smog. My chimney is a hybrid.” Gonedaft pulled out a contract with a flourish. Bumble’s face didn’t change. “It was in your sleeve.” He unfolded it to reveal one of those Terms of Use forms that appears on every website.

Torn shrugged. “Don’t read it, no one ever does. Just type your credit card number on the dotted line and pray we don’t charge it.”

“Wait, this says that I get a share of the treasure up to one-fourteenth? Isn’t a farthing for instance, up to one-fourteenth?”

“Huh. Guess it is.”

“All right, I see I get my own trailer and makeup artist, though you seem to have forgotten the obligatory cheese tray.” He quickly penciled in that part. “Merchandising, my head on several varieties of action figure, all good.” The phrase “certain death” floated in front of his cowardly eyeballs, but was momentarily set aside for a burst of parsimony. “And what’s this part here about a cheap funeral? Forget it. I’ll miss too much television. Besides, I’m no warrior.”

“We don’t want one,” Gonedaft said. “We want a thief. And possibly a paladin if you have one around. Halflings have a magic invisibility power we’ve never seen used before.”

“Really?”

“Sure, why not.”

“And think how happy Smog will be with an appetizer,” Sloth added.

“Gonedaft, can I try on your hat?” Fumble asked.

Gonedaft cuffed him. “Shut up! You haven’t been born yet! We need Bumble for the comic relief, and more, to be the everyman on this quest.” He eyed the dwarves. “Our franchise is losing interest. People would rather dress as the Boy Wizard or Archery Girl for Halloween. And having seen our twelve-hour saga a few times, fans have tucked it on the shelf to gather dust and resemble the attractively bound classics no one ever reads. Only a few renaissance-fair-visiting, Norse-rune-reading fantasy purists still care. We need another adventure.” Firmly, Gonedaft grasped Bumble by his belled collar and dragged him down to the basement, or as the halfling called it, emergency cookie storage.

Once there, Gonedaft eyed the shrimpy halfling. This would require all of his craftiness and guile. Luckily he’d once sold vacuum cleaners door to door. “Bumble, the world isn’t on the science fiction channel! It’s out there.”

“Yes, but in here is a five-course dinner. And modern plumbing.” Bumble hesitated. “Can you promise that I’ll come back?”

“No. And if you do, you won’t be the same…”

“I won’t? Because I’ll be famous throughout Renfair Earth, with my face on birthday party paper plates and rubber Halloween masks and so forth, or because I will have discovered some artifact that saps slowly at my humanity?”

“One of the two, I suppose.

Bumble hesitated. This was the crossroads of his life. The moment of choice. The ultimate smorgasbord. Up above, he heard dwarfish singing. Louder than the rest was Torn, chanting gently: Ring-a-ring-a-dragons, A pocket full of flagons; Ashes! Ashes!

It all fell down.

We dwarves do like to sing songs That are quite copyright-free And dwell on our past troubles And forget about high tea.

Ring-a-ring-a-dragons, A pocket full of flagons; Ashes! Ashes!

It all fell down.

Oh we will quest and tumble, But not perish till part two.

For if we go on cable We’ll find fans we can accrue.

Ring-a-ring-a-dragons, A pocket full of flagons; Ashes! Ashes!

It all fell down.

We’ll sing the exposition And whistle all the day, But if you mix our names up, With our axe blades we will play.

“And cut…off…your…face…” Ploppy added on in a high falsetto.

The dwarves chimed in on the next few choruses.

As they sang, Bumble felt the love of stealing other people’s possessions course through him.

He imagined what it would be like to have his face on calendars and tie-in editions, his outfits available in the tackiest of costume shops. And a longing came over him to see other areas of New Zealand and wear a sword, or at least an eating knife, instead of his usual lobster bib.

Aloud, however, Bumble continued to express reluctance, though less so after every drink

Gonedaft pressed on him. By the twelfth, he was beginning to think that an adventure might be quite a jolly idea, in fact.

Then he passed out.

When he woke in the morning, the dwarves were gone. So were all the small valuable items.

Bumble sighed. Everything was back to normal, or would be after he hid a few more items and then filed a false insurance claim. He dressed himself carefully in his customary outfit of green velvet knee breeches, and green jacket over a red waistcoat and red and white striped stockings.

Ignoring how much he resembled Santa’s favorite helper without the pointy cap, he nodded enthusiastically at the mirror, which promptly cracked. Bundling in his patchwork dressing gown for extra coziness (and giving himself bonus points for the clashing colors), he cooked himself a light and modest breakfast of sausages, bacon, fried eggs, mushrooms, baked beans, fried bread and fried potatoes (which are a New World food, but one cannot have Britain without them!), and ate it all, with much relief. Then he heard a knock at the door. “We’re here to repossess your house!” It seemed the bank’s scouring of the neighborhood had begun.

In an instant, Bumble was flying down the road, all his possessions in the world strapped to his back.

Down the path, a troupe of ponies decked out in colorful circus gear stopped to look at Bumble. He appeared to be dressed worse than they were. On their backs, thirteen dwarves watched with equal skepticism.

“Oh, wow, look, it’s whatshisname,” Ploppy said. “The Christmas gnome.”

“Everyone stay perfectly still. Maybe he won’t spot us,” Sloth muttered.

“I’ve decided to come with you,” Bumble said. “You guys convinced me last night. With your talk of stirring adventures.”

“Fine, get him a pony,” said Torn. He patted the neck of his own Rainbow Delight with fuzzy pink coat and sparkle wings.

“Actually, I’ve never ridden.”

“Then strap him underneath,” Torn said, clearly secure in the knowledge that the next day Bumble would offer to ride on top.

“Just give me a minute to put on a coat,” Bumble said. “I can’t run around having adventures in my dressing gown.

“Really? You look like you’ve done it before,” said Gonedaft.

“I haven’t even brought my camping toilet paper.”

Ploppy considered, and ripped a wad off his beard. “Here.”

They strapped Bumble to the underside of Flitterbuff the pony, bathrobe and all, and they were off. Riding uncomfortably, Bumble felt his heart leap. An adventure at last! Somewhere inside him, his narrow little soul, heretofore content with watching adventures on the big screen, was actually expanding. In short, he felt that one chapter of his life was ending and another beginning.

How Game of Thrones Will End: The Influences Driving the Show and All the Paths It May Take As many know, Game of Thrones takes its story from many influences: the War of the Roses, Catherine de Medici, Norse and Celtic myth as well as medieval ballads. Modern readers find parallels with politics, the corporate world, and conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Will the story end like Lord of the Rings or completely invert it? How about King Arthur? Pop culture and parody author Valerie Estelle Frankel examines the sources and predicts a Game of Thrones ending for each one. What will the Ragnarok ending look like? Or the Narnia ending? Who will live, who will die, and how goofy can the war of ice and fire possibly get?

How It’ll End: Politics The peasants finally have enough. Singing La Marseillaise and wearing ribbons of brown burlap, they storm the Red Keep and guillotine every single Lannister – their cousins, their inlaws, their favorite servants, their kittycats. Of course, since by this point the keep is stuffed with Lannisters, the guillotining takes an entire season (a Westerosi season at that). All goes well until they’re eaten by the ice zombies, whom no one bothered to stop. Jon Snow takes advantage of the chaos to proclaim himself supreme tyrant of the Wall and all the frozen wastelands…now encompassing all of Westeros. He rules wisely and fairly, though not over many subjects.

The Tyrells flee across the sea to Slaver’s Bay, where they fling themselves on Daenerys and beg her to kill the impudent rabble, wed Loras Tyrell, and take the throne. However, Daenerys decides the peasants have a valid point – how can she free the slaves of the east but insist the peasants obey her in the west? She institutes a constitutional republic in Meereen, but to her disappointment, is immediately voted out in favor of the Meerenese lord with the tallest hair and tightest tokar. Ser Loras marries him, and they live happily ever after, though they dispense with the elections in favor of leadership by the most fashionable. Daenerys drifts east, determined to return to the Dothraki and offer them the tools to a fair and open election. She is never heard from again.

How It’ll End: Gormanghast Varys skulks around King’s Landing assassinating Lannisters, until Littlefinger returns and takes a more active role in the same. He convinces Cersei’s cousin Lancel that the Lannisters hate him, and Lancel, enraged, burns down the royal primping chamber where Cersei’s hairdresser manages those fantastic twists and puffs. Cersei, caught in the fire, is horribly scarred and her paranoia turns to madness. She finally flings herself off the roof of King’s Landing.

Tommen rules alone, though he’s captivated by a strange wild girl who lives in the forest.

Every time he glimpses her, he considers chucking everything and fleeing the horrid Lannister regime. Meanwhile, Littlefinger kills and manipulates more and more Lannisters, until Tommen finally slays him in a duel. Tommen flees into the forest where he meets the wild girl and discovers she is Arya, reunited with Nymeria and murdering her enemies whenever they ride through the wood. However, her wolf bond has made her more animal than girl. She leads him, oddly enough, to modern New York, a land of taxis, lightbulbs, and helicopters, where no one will force Tommen to marry at ten or be poisoned at thirteen. Assisted by his beloved kittens, he

becomes a stage magician whose top talent is making doves fly out of a pie in a harmless, nonfatal way for all involved (though he runs away in terror when offered management of a lion act). Arya and Nymeria, meanwhile are most often seen lurking around the Central Park Zoo. All three have never been happier. In time, Tommen changes his name to George R.R. Martin and writes an epic tale of violence and magic that sells millions of copies.

How It’ll End: Ballads and Fairytales Tis in the merry season of winter and the wildling ladies are skipping through the meadows, gathering frozen corpses for the fuel. Brave, bold, and beautiful Daenerys flies North on her beloved dragons. With one glance, Jon falls instantly in love. Riding hell-bent for the North, Prince Aegon sees Daenerys and falls instantly in love as well. The two young heroes mount dragons and battle for three days and three nights until they’re so exhausted that they pledge their friendship and agree to share Daenerys as co-husbands. Then the Other arrives, blustering and roaring on a monstrous ice dragon. When the trio of heroes charge, with swords blazing, one of ice, one of fire, and one of black black steel, he will melt into a puddle of rather muddy slush, with a faint cry of “What a world, what a world…” Daenerys proudly mounts her dragon to fly south and take her throne, but Victarion Greyjoy, hired by Cersei, draws his sword to slay her dragon. However, as his stroke descends, he glances up at Daenerys and falls desperately in love.

He misses and the stroke hits Jon, who dives into the blade’s path. Horrified by the loss of his new brother, Aegon slays Victarion. He and Daenerys share her throne, but for the rest of her days, Daenerys thinks of the brave and noble Jon. How It’ll End: Jacobite Rebellion A Sixth Blackfyre Rebellion begins, led by Aegon VI, though he identifies himself as the lost son of Rhaegar Targaryen, not as the Blackfyre he truly is. Varys and Illyrio have been scheming for decades to end the Targaryen entitlement and create a compassionate ruler who understands how smallfolk live and will treat them with respect and honor. As Blackfyres themselves, they consider this their ultimate revenge on Westeros. Arianne Martell of Dorne allies with Aegon, and convinces Dorne to rise and defend the princes all their enemies have slain. Unfortunately for the pair, the lords have no interest in respect for commoners and only want Daenerys, dazzling, beautiful, legitimate, and available for marriage, with dragons to boot. The other six kingdoms dismiss Aegon’s claims, and he’s finally revealed as a fraud.

Daenerys conquers the Seven Kingdoms, and (in a spirit of compassion) banishes Aegon back to the Free Cities, though she keeps the Blackfyres’ golden heads for her trophy case.

Arianne, for her treason, in banished alongside her husband, and the Blackfyre claim to the throne becomes a joint claim for the thrones of Westeros and Dorne, as the Golden Company continues to campaign and make demands. Queen Daenerys finally grants them a small stipend to stop annoying her and bids them to go rule Meereen, as that worked out so well for her. They follow her instructions and are just as hated there as she was. Daenerys considers beheading Varys and Illyrio for trying to have her killed by the harsh Dothraki lifestyle, but realizes she’s indebted to Illyrio for the gift of his dragon eggs long ago. She sends the scheming pair to go to Asshai and bring her more, but they have not yet returned.

How It’ll End: King Arthur Jon is transformed by the Other into a figure of Ice determined to destroy Westeros and especially his family, to be king after the world is reduced to ice and snow. Having found the

magical Targaryen sword Blackfyre, emblem of the Targaryen kings, Daenerys arrives to battle him, with her entourage of knights. She has left behind Daario Naharis, who cheated on her with a beautiful and valiant maiden, then entered an abbey. Reportedly, the septas there are all very happy.

Upon her arrival, Melisandre gives her many cryptic warnings. Daenerys battles Jon sword to sword, fire dragon to ice dragon, and realizes she could have loved him, her nephew.

Nonetheless, she kills him. Battling the wights, Barristan, Jorah, and all of Daenerys’s inner circle are slain, save for humble Missandei. Daenerys hands her Blackfyre, the magical Targaryen sword, and asks her to throw it into the sea. She does, and the children of the forest bear Daenerys underground, to a place of healing beside Bran among the weirwoods. Bran sees that Jon’s body is burned, and forbids the Children of the Woods to eat him.

With all their heirs to the Iron Throne dead, the seven kingdoms break apart. There are no more dragons, no more magic. The weirwoods go silent. The Maesters throw a gala celebration and set about rewriting history so that they saved the day, while the Septon attempts to convert all of Westeros in the wake of the red priesthood’s collapse. The Ironborn start raiding so much that they’ve soon intermarried with most of Westeros and so become part of it. All of our heroes drift into legend.

How It’ll End: A Wizard of Earthsea Jon studies with Melisandre, who teaches him to create shadow creatures. He gives it a try, despite the disturbing “mature audiences” scene that follows. However, this shadow seems disinclined to obey, and in fact decides it wants to kill Jon. Melisandre fears the Other at the end of the world has stolen it from them, and also fears that the shadow hates Jon because Jon still believes in the Old Gods, not the Lord of Light. In a rage at being replaced, Stannis strangles Melisandre, but she manages to kill him before he kills her. As Jon flees Castle Black to escape the shadow, Sam goes with him. On their quest, they shelter with a mysterious old couple who give them half of the magical Targaryen sword Dark Sister. This sort of thing always happens on quests. Finally, Jon meets the shadow under a weirwood and tells it the Old Gods and the Lord of Light are one – all battle the endless night. The shadow accepts this wisdom and joins with him.

Another “mature audiences” scene ensues, as this is Martin.

Following this comes an incredibly protracted subplot in which Sam tracks the missing half of Dark Sister to Braavos. There, he meets a deadly assassin of the Faceless Men, who nearly murders him. When he sees her use her warg magic, he realizes who she is and calls her Arya Stark. She gives him the missing half of Dark Sister and agrees to return to Westeros and see Jon Snow.

Daenerys finally invades Westeros, only to discover a Targaryen pretender, calling himself Aegon VI and her nephew, is wreaking havoc in the Stormlands. She is tempted to go aid him as the Lannisters descend upon him, but Quaithe summons her north to battle the Endless Winter. There she meets Jon, who uses his warg powers to tame Viserion the white dragon, while Daenerys rides the black. After a dozen Night’s Watch soldiers are burned to death

by Rhaegal, they learn their lesson, and the third dragon is left in peace.

At the edge of the world, Daenerys and Jon face a terrible sacrifice – the magic of their shared Targaryen blood can bring the spring if they give it up forever. This they do, as Daenerys lights a final bonfire and they walk into it together. Their dragons carry them from the blaze, injured yet alive, and fly them down to King’s Landing. There they discover Aegon VI has taken the throne, hero of the common people for slaughtering the Lannisters and winning the only

battle they’ve ever cared about. He cannot even offer Daenerys the queenship, as he’s married Arianne Martell, heir to Dorne. He does however offer Jon a place as his advisor. With the Wall no longer necessary, Jon accepts. Jon and Aegon are acclaimed by all of Westeros as great heroes, and Daenerys, merely a woman and pacifist, finds herself largely ignored.

While Jon flies north and fights the king of the wights to a standstill, Daenerys marries Ser Jorah and settles down for a quiet life in the country. Jorah dies, and Daenerys continues alone.

However, a child with half her face covered in scars appears at her door one day and Daenerys realizes Shireen has been orphaned and abandoned. After her father died, her mother went mad and tried to kill her. Daenerys adopts the child and they live in safety and contentment until Daenerys receives a strange message from Quaithe. Following instructions, she brings Shireen to a hilltop, only to find Melisandre waiting. It is revealed that Melisandre, not Quaithe, has called her. Melisandre has always planned to sacrifice Shireen for the power her magical blood will bring, and she is the one to have nearly killed the girl.

After Daenerys defends Shireen, Jon flies up on his dragon. He sarcastically announces that he would rather be a goatherd in the country than a king, so Daenerys narrows her eyes and invites him to stay. With a quick glance at her enormous dragon, he sputters and agrees. They go home together and soon fall in love. Meanwhile, Melisandre attacks once more, and Shireen, driven to desperation, mounts the third dragon and saves Jon and Daenerys. She flings a bucket of water onto Melisandre, who, being a fire priestess, promptly turns to wet ash and dies. Shireen reveals herself as the third dragonrider, and the trio of humans fly together for the rest of their lives. Someone or other rules in King’s Landing but it doesn’t matter much to them. Since no tax collector will go near a house with three dragons, they live solitary, pleasant lives as a family.

How It’ll End: Philippa Gregory Thanks to the childhood curse upon her, Cersei’s children Joffrey then Tommen are mysteriously killed, thanks to Stannis and his leech burning. Immediately, Cersei summons her third child home to rule. However, Myrcella returns a young woman, prepared to rule rather than being managed by her mother. Advised heavily by the scheming Arianne Martell, Myrcella makes awkward political choices.

At last, Stannis suddenly proposes marriage to Myrcella. With his wife dead from her pickling jar fumes, he can marry her and take the throne as the one true king. Margaery is interested, but he trusts her about as much as a viper in a pet shop. Myrcella is actually flattered and interested, though Cersei hears rumors Stannis may have murdered her two boys. She refuses, and Myrcella sneaks from the castle to run off and marry Stannis. However, a jealous Melisandre sends a shadow baby to strangle her on their wedding night. Upon hearing this, Cersei is so filled with rage that she drops dead on the spot. Jaime tries to give her CPR, but unfortunately uses the golden hand, which crushes her windpipe. Daenerys comes from over the sea, takes the throne, and weds Jaime, last of the Lannisters.

How It’ll End: Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice Bran and Jon learn that an Endless Winter is coming. Though Daenerys, Melisandre, and their friends fight bravely, the winter that lasts a generation begins. Westeros is destroyed, mirroring Old Valyria long ago. The Seven Kingdoms, after squandering all their food during the Civil War, slowly starve. Cannibalism becomes rampant, and Cersei is discovered to love her children so much that she’s had them quietly smothered and eaten them. Upon discovering this, a sobbing Jaime kills her, then himself. Fortunately, Tyrion has died in the Battle for the Dawn, or

he would have made any number of pointed comments. However, Jon, Daenerys, Bran, and three wights escape to Essos, there to conquer the entire continent and become its new rulers in an empire of ice. Aegon the Conqueror has come full circle. As for Westeros, brave souls journey there once or twice generation, seeking the famous lost treasure…Joffrey’s fabled sword Lion’s Tooth, described in story and song as the slayer of a monstrous warg, wielded by the Golden Prince, noblest hero of his age.

How It’ll End: Sword and Sorcery After the War for the Dawn, Arya will decide she’s done with civilized life, and she and the Hound will wander through Westeros, with him brawling with “true knights” for coin and her quietly murdering anyone who makes cracks about gender, or says nasty things about wolves and Starks. Nymeria joins them, and Arya uses her wolf magic whenever she’s caught in bad situations. Occasionally, the three-eyed crow contacts her in wolf dreams to give her an assignment for “the good of the realm,” but mostly she and the Hound seek lost treasure among the ancient ruins of the world, from the North to Old Valyria. She never wears a dress again.

Eventually, they run across the Hound’s nephew – a byblow of Gregor Clegane’s who is seven feet tall with “sullen,” “smoldering,” and “volcanic” blue eyes, bronzed skin, long black hair down to his waist, and a “pantherlike grace,” dressed only in a loincloth. Though she’s several feet shorter than this mass of muscle and far quicker, Arya finds herself falling for him after he kills an entire company of enemy sellswords and piles their heads into a rough sculpture of her. They live happily ever after, though always on the road.

A Star Trek: TNG Crossover Cereals Back was in trouble. It wasn’t just Henry Potty lying beside him, occasionally ceasing his moaning long enough to puke. It wasn’t the general murkiness of the Scary Woods outside Chickenfeet Academy, where both of them lay. And it wasn’t that his most recent meal had been a hot dog off a street cart, so that he kept tasting horse each time he burped. He’d eaten far worse during his long decade of incarceration in the terrible wizard prison Marzipan, where everything was built out of burnt almonds and treacle. There, the black-cloaked Demeanies terrorized their inmates with their utterly generic monster costumes and scary “woo woo” noises.

They were so vicious and disloyal, it was rumored they’d sell their services to the highest franchise (and indeed they’d appeared in many). Being forced to endlessly polish their plastic ghost masks and hear them rehearse for Wizneyland commercials had been the low point of Cereals’ year.

Cereals had escaped Marzipan (by chiseling through the crystallized treacle walls using only his front teeth) and was on the run, but that wasn’t the worst of his predicament. Cereals had endured everyone’s hatred, as he was wrongfully accused of betraying the entire Wizarding World to Lord Revolting by spilling the location of Henry Potty, who would one day become the star of the series. If Revolting hadn’t been so inept as to get himself killed by the one-year-old he was trying to assassinate, none of the seven books would have been written. Cereals had never committed that betrayal. In fact, he would never risk the franchise for any reason (the third book was named for him after all!), but the Demeanies had taunted him with their knowledge of the true culprit, the slimeball Wormsnail, while Cereals suffered amidst the endless treacle burgers and almonds almandine.

And that still wasn’t the worst: For so endangering their seven-book contracts, the Ministry of Muckups had compounded Cereals’ life sentence without chance of parole or toothpaste, piling on the cruelest fate they could imagine: In Marzipan, he’d been known only as the Man in the Iron Pants. Now free of the dreaded pants (by chiseling through the reinforced steel using only his front teeth) Cereals was at last facing real trouble. It took the form of the hundred or so Demeanies piled on top of him in a sloppy football tackle who were busy sucking out his brains.

Cereals peered at the dingy grass surrounding him. Yup, he was dying. The brain matter oozing out his ears and into the meadow confirmed it.

Then he heard a glass-etching feminine screech from far above. “Henry, Cereals’ dying!

We’ve got to save him.”

“Isn’t he evil?” This voice was male and more resonant, not because its owner had hit puberty, but because of the echo chamber his empty skull could supply.

“You fell for that? You actually fell for the AUTHOR’s misdirection? Wow, Horrendous, can you believe it? That’s what she wanted us to think.” This voice was filled with macho heroism and bravado, empty of common sense or formal education. None that had penetrated, anyway. Cereals rolled his eyes. A few cryptic pronouncements that he was going to kill all his enemies, starting with the almond growers and ending with all Wizneyland patrons, and everyone had mistaken him for a villain.

“So that creepy murderer guy who hasn’t showered in a decade is the good guy? Then who’s the bad one?”

“Your pet chinchilla. He’s been spinning on his little wheel for two whole books and plotting to betray us all.” Cereals winced as a single thought drifted from what remained of his brains.

Henry was in two places at once, one retching beside him, and one spewing equal uselessness somewhere above. And that meant teenagers were time traveling. The universe would likely end in moments.

There was a smack of empty palm on emptier head. “Why didn’t I see that coming?”

Another screech introduced Horrendous Gangrene as the speaker. “Look! The Demeanies’ll suck out his brains and eat them without ketchup!”

“What are they, zombies?” Really Wimpy asked.

“No one knows. Under their robes could be anything. Even…” Cereals could hear Horrendous shudder. “Mime artists.”

“What can we do?”

“We need to change what’s already happening! Think how much fanfiction we’d lose without Cereals!”

Cereals Back felt his life draining from him and with his last thought, he willed the teens to just let him die, rather than shredding the entire fabric of the universe just so he could hang on for a few more lousy books (and thousands of fanfictions devoted to his nonexistent personal life). But as he felt a bubble of horse-flavored foreboding drifting up from deep inside him, he knew it was too late. *** Henry Potty exchanged frustrated glances with his friends. Just as they’d been about to accomplish the best all-time rescue ever, Really Wimpy had tripped on his own shoelaces, and Henry, running behind him without looking where he was going, had gone hurtling over the prone teen and into the mud. By the time Horrendous had picked up her stunned friends and helped Henry sponge off his glasses, the Demeanies had killed Cereals, along with a past version of Henry Potty.

Now they were all locked in their dorm room for killing the worst traitor in history without a permission slip.

“Darnit, Cereals shouldn’t have died,” Henry complained for the fortieth time. “If I’d only read ahead, I’d have known he was a good guy, and I wouldn’t have plotted to kill him for half a book.” He dragged the corpse of himself up to a sitting position, and moved it like a ventriloquist dummy. “I agree, oh great Chosen One, how ‘bout you?” (Some might wonder why the three children had been sent to their room with a corpse. However, the detention slip had read “Henry Potty,” not “Only versions of Henry Potty still alive” or “Just the most recent Henry Potty from this reality.” You’d think a magic school with time travel devices would be more precise.)

Really Wimpy, who’d been pondering for the last three hours, finally felt his thoughts congealing into an idea. Or at least a question. “Horrendous, you said earlier that we need to change what’s happening. What’d you mean?”

Horrendous hesitated, twisting a long mousy curl around her finger. “If this were fiction, I’d suggest we turn back a few pages.”

Henry’s eyes widened. “It is fiction…but can we really do that?”

Horrendous tried to look mysterious, but only managed a know-it-all smirk. “With the power of reading, we can. All the library posters say so.”

“That’s great! We can go back a decade and save my parents.”

Horrendous looked regretful. “I’m really sorry, Henry. But I only have a certain number of words allotted per month, and I used up the last batch texting.”

“Rewritten the story yet?” Bumbling Bore asked as he entered the room, long beard dragging behind him. His half-moon glasses were absently dangling from one ear.

“Professor! We weren’t going to—” “Disrupt the entire course of the novel and drive the readers mad to free a convicted traitor?

Of course you were—I read ahead.” The professor paced the room, stepped on his own beard, and fell flat on his face. “A curious thing, beards. One’s chin droops lower and lower until one’s jaw seems to be resting on the floor.”

“Your jaw is on the floor,” Henry said, helping him up.

“Ah. That explains it. What was I speaking of?”

“Beards.”

“What? Why bother with those? If you’re going to page-travel, you need sage advice from a master of the magical arts. Too bad all you have is me. Now listen: You will cross chapters and repeat paragraphs. You will skim sentences and dance on the tips of apostrophes. Beware the dreaded semicolon and its ilk, and make sure to dot your t’s and cross your i’s.”

“What? Professor, that’s—” “Silence! You have no time.” Bumbling Bore hesitated. “Aside from all that you’re about to create. Now be careful: You may in fact go where no one has bothered going before.”

Ignoring the professor as always, the teens clustered in the room’s center. “Everyone hold hands,” Horrendous said. Really, always an opportunist, grabbed hers. Henry followed. “Now repeat after me: Ookmark-bay. Ookmark-bay!” As the teens all chanted this ancient word of power, they heard pages rustling, and a faint scent of bookbinder’s glue. And the world reshaped itself. *** “Henry, Cereals’ dying! We’ve got to save him,” Horrendous screeched. They were back in the sky, flying on their trusty hippogriff, Heidi, who was using her griffin head to preen their legs, and her horse body to whack them affectionately with her tail. Horrendous relaxed a fraction. The past hadn’t happened yet. At least, she thought it hadn’t.

“Isn’t he evil?” Really asked, even though they’d just answered his question a few pages back.

Henry straightened to his most dramatic height to respond, and then stared. Around them were floating a stuffy-looking dog and a boy with glasses, an odd blue police box, and a DeLorean.

Horrendous shuddered. “We’re brushing other franchises. Make sure we avoid them.”

“Hey don’t tell me—I’m not driving,” Henry said. A quick poll confirmed that none of them were.

Just then, Heidi spied the DeLorean and, barking cheerfully, gave chase. Henry tumbled off her back, furiously gaining speed as he hurtled toward the ground. At last, the two remaining teens heard a faint thump, and saw a cartoonlike dust puff rise. They stared in horror. “Do-over?”

Really asked.

“Within a do-over?” Horrendous shuddered. “What could happen?”

“If we don’t, it’s the end of the franchise. And this book doesn’t even have Lord Revolting.”

“So no battle, no further books, no movie deals.” Horrendous swallowed. “I haven’t even worn a gorgeous dress and done a slow walk-on.” She nodded, biting her lip. “Do-over it is.” *** “Henry, Cereals’ dying! We’ve got to save him,” Horrendous screeched. All three of them had returned to Heidi’s back, and the past hadn’t happened yet. Although Horrendous was starting to feel airsick.

“Isn’t he evil?” Really asked, less than helpfully.

A globby purple eddy opened in the space before them, smelling faintly of grape jello. “Is this normal?” Henry asked, turning to stare at Horrendous. He sat at the front of the hippogriff, looking no more confused than usual.

“The purple thing, returning from death, repeating dialogue, or having breath that smells like feet?”

Really Wimpy squealed and clutched Horrendous inappropriately. “We’re heading straight into it!”

As the teens plunged through, Horrendous’s last words floated behind them: “Oh no, it’s another franchise!” *** In a galaxy not as far away as some might wish…

Captain Guitard of the Starship Tastipize surveyed the bridge and smiled tightly. Everything was proceeding with efficiency: the consoles were making background bleeps, the elevator was wooshing, and the communications system was making its customary chitters, as if a set of insane crickets had invaded the wiring.

True, in the twin drivers’ seats, Mr. Waiter was wearing underpants on his head, while beside him Nestley Crunch was smirking, clearly unaware of the “Dweeblet” sign on his own back.

Behind Guitard, the alien security chief Whiff was making those soft growls that indicated someone had spiked his morning prune juice with coffee.

Pranking had reached a new level on the ship, from short-sheeting beds to switching people’s heads in the transploder. Doctor Crunch had even tried soaking Mr. Waiter’s bathmat so he’d short circuit and start singing show tunes with the rapidly-deteriorating remnants of his android brain, which had gone over thirty million miles without a tune-up. It had been a long week.

“Sooo.” Guitard eyed his rather worse-for-wear bridge crew. “Mr. Waiter, what are you doing?”

“Completing a 1969 crossword puzzle, writing a rather substandard haiku, analyzing the most probable weekly wash cycle of Counselor Trip’s trendy outfits, and attempting to master the accordion. Oh, and driving, sir.”

“And there is a pair of tighty-whiteys on your head because?”

“Mr. Crunch told me it would attract anomalies of the sort we are in this sector to observe.

Apparently, asking the helmsman to wear them is a time-honored tradition.”

Guitard rolled his eyes. Back in his day, they’d done the same thing, ordering ensigns to find left-handed coffee cups and next week’s memos. It was good to see the fleet was upholding its fine traditions.

First Officer Biker strode onto the bridge, surreptitiously rubbing his stomach. He was tall and muscular, with good looks that attracted many alien women, though few human ones. “Sorry I’m late, sir. Someone put prune juice in my coffee.”

“Crikey! Golly jeepers!” This was Nestley, the alleged teen genius.

“Something to report, Mr. Crunch?”

“Something strange ahead, Captain.”

Guitard gestured at the flatscreen. “Make it show.”

Mr. Waiter stared, eyes extending from his artificial skull in order to zoom in. “Captain, it appears to be…an anomaly.”

Captain Guitard studied the swirling pink wobbly shape, like a mass of scented soap that wouldn’t go down the drain. Against the blackness of space, it was particularly garish, like hot pink socks with a pinstripe suit. “Indeed.” He paused. “What precisely is an anomaly?”

“Something we don’t have a name for, sir.”

“I see.”

He turned to his left, where Counselor Ditzy Trip was brushing her abundant curls. There was no purpose to having her on the bridge, but, as she had pointed out, the chairs up there were far comfier than the ones at her hairdresser’s. And the magazines were more hip. “Counselor, can you sense anything with your flimsy telepathy?”

“I’ll try.” Her face contorted in agony. “Such arrogance!” She smirked self-importantly.

Then her eyes widened into a vacant expression. “And small-minded idiocy.” Ditzy straightened, face setting in determination. “Courage untempered by any kind of brains. And lots of shifting moods.” She tried to act this one out, and in the process tumbled out of her chair. Biker craned his neck, trying to see up her miniskirt. “Captain!” Ditzy stared at him, eyes so wide they were filling with tears. “It’s teenagers!”

Nestley Crunch’s head shot up. “Cool!”

“Bloody teenagers,” Guitard muttered. “First it’s spraypaint, and then they’re poking holes in the fabric of reality with their platform shoes and degenerate ways.”

“No, Captain, something’s coming through!” Biker said. Stating the obvious was his top resume-worthy skill. That and Alaskan ice fishing.

They all stared at the flatscreen, rather than, say, arming weapons, raising shields, or monitoring the monitors. At last, a strange creature appeared, part eagle, part horse, part lion, and based on its shrill cries, part speaker feedback.

“Mr. Waiter?”

Waiter tilted his head, analyzing the spectacle, and then rechecked, using the less useful solitaire game on his monitor. “Captain, it appears to be a hippogriff.”

“A what?”

“A mythological creature. In the Middle Ages they were deemed incredibly unlikely because griffons eat horses, or would if they were not also fictional. The griffons, that is, although horses appear in many fictional works from Black Beauty to Mr. Pony Uses the Potty. In British folklore —” “Shut up, Waiter.” Guitard considered. “So we have an impossible creature that couldn’t exist anyway because half wants to eat the other half for lunch. If it weren’t also fictional. What a puzzle. I propose we compile all the research into a tidy hundred-page report…”

“Captain!” Nestley shouted. “It’s flying straight at us!” Since Mr. Waiter was busy changing the picture on the electronic solitaire cards from spaceships to fuzzy trubbles, Nestley executed a sharp right turn. Waiter flew from his seat and hurtled through the flatscreen.

Everyone paused. “Where is he?” Biker asked. A few fragments tumbled from the spiderwebbed screen with its jagged hole in the center.

“There is no cause for alarm!” Waiter leaned through the hole and waved. “Fortunately, the Tastipize camera crew caught me. And they agreed to only bill us after taxes.”

“Right!” Guitard stood decisively and tugged so hard on his fake tuxedo front that it flew up and hit him in the nose. “Whiff, turn on the loudspeaker. Waiter, get back in here and start scanning for useful information. Ditzy, you too. Nestley, achieve puberty already. Biker, state something obvious.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes sir.”

“Sir, we’re in space.”

Ditzy gasped. “That’s just what I’ve been sensing.”

“Loudspeaker on.” Whiff eyed the screen. He only ever wanted to see something like that while drinking Klinger beverages from his unlicenced still. “And weapons charged.” His brow furrowed (even beyond its alien pre-furrowed state). “With extreme prejudice at the ready.

Guitard straightened, which allowed him to use his full vocal range. “Attention, teenage hooligans. This part of space has not been cleared for joyriding on mythical animals. In addition, you may be further endangering an endangered species, as only one exists in this universe, and it may be tempted to eat itself. Please go back where you came from or we will notify your parents.”

“No response.” Whiff reported.

“Hostile?”

“Not unusually so. Unless someone spikes my Purina Klinger chow.”

“No, I meant those…” Guitard wiped at his sleeve, as if trying to scrub away some imaginary filth… “teenagers.”

On the flatscreen, three human shapes were clear on the hippogriff’s back. They bounced in place.

“Captain, I feel I should mention that sound does not travel in space,” Waiter reported. “And since they have no spaceship, they have no way to answer our transmission.”

“Hang on,” Biker said. “How are they breathing?”

“They seem to be using a bobble-head charm.”

Guitard winced. First teens, now toys. “Surely, you mean bubble.”

“No sir.” Waiter paused. “Bobble-heads don’t require oxygen.”

The three figures looked increasingly bouncy now. Ridiculous, even.

“Captain, if we transplode them aboard, we can talk to them,” Biker said.

“And this would bring the ship’s teen population up to?”

“Still within tolerance levels,” Waiter reported, fudging the details slightly. He had nearly made the solitaire high score table.

“Very well. Transploder room two.” Guitard eyed Waiter, who still had underpants on his head, and Whiff, who was fingering the stungun under his sash. “Biker, Trip, Crunch, with me.”

The trio entered the transploder room conveniently just as the beam energized. The fuzzy shape, rather like television static, solidified into one hippogriff with three teens huddled on its

back, all bobble-head shaped. Then one in front waved a wand, and they changed into three normal teens. Relatively normal, anyway.

The one in front sported a devil-may-care smile and a strange wiggly scar across his forehead. Behind him was a red-haired adolescent who looked about thirteen in both age and IQ. His patchwork sweater had most likely been cobbled together from recycled handkerchiefs.

Behind him sat a girl genius, evidenced by a bandolier of calculators and pocket protectors only rivaled by Nestley Crunch’s collection. She looked at Nestley. He looked at her. Then she threw up all over the transploder pad.

“Bloody teenagers!” Guitard roared. “Can’t hold their spacesickness. Biker, fetch a mop.”

“Sorry sir, it’s not in my contract to be useful.”

“Counselor?”

Ditzy’s headshake possibly indicated anything from her being on the same plan as Biker’s to her not knowing where mops were kept, or in fact, what a mop even was.

The teen in front beamed. “Great, another Brit.” His British accent was clearly pronounced.

The captain coughed. “Actually, I’m French.”

“But your accent—” The captain coughed again. “It was decided that forcing Starfeet personnel to deal with the French on a daily basis would constitute unnecessary hazard pay.”

Horrendous retched again (possibly at the mention of the French). Her two companions didn’t react, as they only had eyes for Ditzy Trip. At their school, concealing robes were in fashion, and Ditzy’s spandex top was especially tight today.

“And I’m Commander Biker. This lady in the miniskirt you two can’t take your eyes off is Counselor Ditzy Trip, who’s responsible for keeping us all distracted.” The captain elbowed him and he jumped. “I mean, balanced.” The captain elbowed him again. “Oh, and this is the captain.

He’s in charge.”

“I’m Henry Potty,” said the teen. “These are my pals Really Wimpy and Horrendous Gangrene.”

“Charmed,” Nestley said, voice cracking, as he stared across the vomit-stained transploder at the geeky Horrendous.

Guitard cleared his throat. “Perhaps Mr. Crunch here will show you three around. Starting with the infirmary where his mother can try to work out what—I mean who—you are.”

“But we don’t have time for a tour,” Horrendous screeched. “We were being chased by Demeanies who plan to suck our souls out. And we were nearly murdered by the Man in the Iron Pants who’d been a convict for twelve years, only to find out he was innocent and it was Really Wimpy’s pet chinchilla who’d done it!”

“Worn iron pants?” Biker asked.

“No, killed half the countryside,” Henry said.

“That’s what I sensed,” Ditzy said. They all ignored her.

“Anyway, the Demeanies were closing in, and I closed my eyes and waved my wand a lot and this kind of rip opened, so we flew through it and here we are.” Horrendous paused. “Where is here?”

“Ah, a question of cosmic importance. I suggest you bother Mr. Waiter. Or anyone, in fact, but me.” The captain tugged on his uniform, futilely attempting to lessen his wedgie. “Mr. Biker, I’ll expect a prompt report. And learn to spell.” ***

The captain hurried off for a bubble bath with a glass of wine, Hamlet for Numbskulls, and extra duckies. He was just leaving his dressing room when all the alarms shrieked at once.

Rubbing his hearing aid, Guitard picked up the phone. “Bloody teenagers!”

“No, Captain, it’s me,” said Chief Engineer Georgy Porgy.

“Everything all right?”

“Sure, Captain. Except more anomalies have appeared and some are sucking us in.”

“Any damage?

“Only to your model train set.”

“Mon Dieu, that’s a collectable! Stoke the engines. Add more antimatter!”

“Sir, you know the engine doesn’t work that way.”

Guitard paused. “True. Then give some extra nibbles to the hamster.”

“The one on the little treadmill that really powers—” “Shhh.” Guitard motioned for silence, even though he was speaking to a speaker. “We use wrapped drive here. Not hamster power. We don’t want to look silly in front of the Fungi.”

“I think that boat sailed after they saw Waiter singing, sir.”

Guitard hung up and began making a collect call to the bridge (which was just outside the door, but leaving would require him to change out of his fluffy bathrobe). All at once the ship exploded.

All right, that’s an exaggeration. It didn’t so much explode as engage in a full-body sneeze.

The deck shuddered under Guitard’s feet, beginning like a single step-dancer’s practice routine and escalating until an entire herd of elephants seemed to have joined in. Guitard grabbed at his beloved wall-mounted fish tank, and winced as it tipped over on his head, showering his bald head with temperature-controlled, chum-filled saltwater. A fish wriggled perplexedly in his ear.

“Ahh!” Guitard hit the floor hard, eyes tearing from the saltwater and none-too-clean tank.

He clambered to his hands and knees, and, wincing, crawled forward cautiously, only to thud headfirst into the bookshelf. The resulting tremor upset a pair of bowling balls settled precariously on its top. They plummeted onto his head, first one, then the other, until Guitard was sure he could see an orbiting ring of Starship Tastipizes. (The captain had never bowled before, preferring fencing and cheese tasting, but at times like this there are always bowling balls at the ready.)

Guitard staggered to his feet and dashed for the door, rubbing saltwater from his dripping eyes as his head throbbed in agony. He suddenly stepped, of course, on the single rake that he’d been using to skim leaves from the top of the fish tank. Its handle whacked him in the skull with a characteristic doioioing. “Mph!” Now Guitard had a welt on the front of his head to match the twin lumps above.

Groping blindly, he activated the door opener and staggered onto the bridge. “Waiter! What’s happening?”

“Destruction of the universe in the next twenty minutes, Captain.” He and Georgy Porgy were standing at the bridge’s engineering station, tapping futilely at the pictures of buttons. On the flatscreen, another batch of anomalies was forming. Blue swirly ones, gray swirly ones, orange swirly ones. One had stripes. “They are destabilizing space, rather like wearing a hole in a trampoline.” Waiter paused. “In space.” He wasn’t good with metaphors. “I would posit that these anomalies are concentrating around the underwear on my head. As proved in the twentysecond century by the famous fraternity president and physicist Eric Xexxenberg, wearing underwear in this manner can weaken the fabric of reality, as if we’d poured on too much stain remover and then blown a hole in space-time with it.”

The captain’s headache was approaching a hole in space-time itself. “Deal with this. I’ll be in the infirmary.” *** Dr. Banana Crunch was perplexed. It wasn’t that the three teens were particularly odd. Once you’d met the icicle entity, the artificial lifeforms made from old pie pans, and the microculture that had evolved from the mold in her medical fridge, teenagers were just another unpleasant fact. These, however, were something else.

“How are you doing that?” she asked, as every piece of medical equipment transformed into a hedgehog.

“Magic.” Henry Potty said.

“Not transdimensional interphasic metamorphing? Or megaomnipotence? Or technology too advanced to be explained? Just…”

“Poof,” Henry said helpfully, adding a certain hedgehogness to Dr. Crunch’s collection of thermometers.

“Poof.” Dr. Crunch sat down heavily, on a chair that was now feeling unusually curved and spiny.

“It’s scientifically possible, Mom,” Nestley put in. He and Horrendous were sitting side by side on a hospital bed, texting and sharing pictures from their contrasting universes. “If magic evolved on their world and not ours. They probably don’t use much technology themselves—no computers or cellphones or indoor plumbing…”

Horrendous nodded. “Just IMAX theaters and CGI, really.”

“A world with magic?” Thoughts of unimaginable medical leaps filled the doctor’s head.

One was paramount. “Could you make Nestley hit puberty?”

“Hey!” “What, why?” This was Horrendous.

“Well, in our world, medicine has advanced and the lifespan is close to two hundred. But we take correspondingly longer to reach adulthood.” Dr. Crunch hesitated. “The truth is, if Nestley’s as big a weenie as his father, he could be like this for up to twenty years! And I can’t take another minute.”

“What!” Guitard stood in the doorway, face like thunder. “You said he was just smallboned!” His uniform’s tuxedo front flew up and hit him in the eye, and he smoothed it firmly.

Vision no longer obstructed, Guitard stared. He was nearly certain that all the medical equipment hadn’t been hedgehogs yesterday. “Ahem. We need to find these children’s proper universe and send them there. Immediately.”

“Because the fabric of reality is thinning?” Nestley asked.

“Er, yes. Certainly,” Guitard said too quickly.

Henry leaned against a console and yelped as he started to tumble through it. “What the—?”

“Henry, he just said,” Horrendous pointed out. “Reality is thinning.”

Dr. Crunch found a computer that hadn’t been hedgehogged and logged in. “Captain, walls are fading all over the ship. And everyone’s been calling. You really shouldn’t turn off your cellphone.”

As the captain started responding to his eighty-six text messages, Horrendous waved her wand. “Ix-it-fay!”

Instantly, every available bottle of glue hurtled toward Henry, who was still stuck half-inside the wall. “Horrendous!” He ducked as the bottles orbited him, twirling and spattering.

“No, stop!” Really Wimpy whimpered, hopping from foot to foot. “I mean, op-stay! Simon Says!” As he waved his wand, sparks dribbled in all directions, singeing marks in the floor.

“Really, watch it, that glue is flammable!” Horrendous shrieked, busy coaxing the bottles away from Henry, one by one. However, magically woken for the first time, they all seemed eager to create the maximum ruckus while they had their freedom.

Nestley tried to drag Henry from the wall, but his hands stuck to Henry’s arm. This always happens when there’s glue anywhere around.

“Mom, help!” Nestley bleated.

As Really turned, his wand ignited two of the hedgehogs, who ran shrieking through the room.

Doctor Crunch grabbed the fire extinguisher, but the hedgehogs charged, knocking her off her feet. She landed on her well-cushioned posterior, and tried to stand. But the glue it seemed had gotten everywhere. “Nestley, help!”

“Everyone stop!” Guitard demanded.

Horrendous and Really ceased casting spells, while the glue bottles themselves, for some reason, clattered to the floor.

“Golly. And you thought I was bad,” Nestley grinned.

“That’s it—I want these anomalies closed now,” the captain said.

“The three of us can handle it,” Henry Potty said proudly. “They haven’t invented the reality I can’t destroy.”

“No, we’re trying to save it,” Horrendous said.

“Oh. That’s good too.”

“We’ll need to monitor at least one member of their team,” said Doctor Crunch from the floor.

“Neat! I’ll stay,” Really Wimpy said. Even with medical probes, the stable world of steady meals and curious female med students appealed far more than dimension hopping.

“That leaves two of us to find our own universe,” Henry said. “In the most rule-breakingly, heroic, death-defying way possible, of course.”

Guitard coughed heavily at the words rule breaking. “I’m not altogether comfortable sending two unprepared teenagers to save us.”

“Three,” Henry said. He waved a hand for emphasis, and Nestley’s entire arm came with it.

“Great!” Nestley said. “I’m finally in!”

The captain gave him a disgusted look and activated his cellphone. “Commander Biker, get these annoying children off my ship. There’s an airlock down the hall.”

“Right you are, sir. Meet me in the hallway, you three, I’ll find you goaway team gear.”

“No, I meant—” the captain considered. “Well, I suppose that’s faster.” He eyed Really Wimpy, who was busy cleaning out an ear with a medical probe. “The universe is in their hands.” *** By photocopying Really Wimpy’s transdimentional scent (and separating it from his own personal stench), the crew established parameters on finding the universe where magic actually worked. And so Horrendous, Henry, and Nestley transploded into the most likely universe of their long-lost Chickenfeet Academy.

Henry stared. “Was it always this cluttered?”

The mess rivaled even Henry’s room at home with its collections of autographed toilet tissue and lack-of-muscle posters. There were heaps of wands: with light beams, with swishing sounds,

with sibling transformation spells. There were Halloween costumes and wizard hats. School uniforms, striped ties, and scarves. Hundreds of pairs of round glasses, oddly, without any glass in them. Stuffed owls and toads and all manner of plush and puppet creatures.

“What’s all this junk?” Nestley asked.

Horrendous shook her head in puzzlement as she gazed about the crowded warehouse.

“There aren’t any Sorting Rats, or flying pigs to bring the mail or Quick-grab-the-fish pennants.

This must be some other franchise.” She opened a box, and a winged golden golf ball flew up and hit her in the nose. “Ow!” “It’s kind of close though,” Henry said, admiring a heroically-posed poster of a far more heroic-looking teen.

“Wow, look at this,” Nestley said. He’d stumbled across a pile of his own universe’s trubbles. “And here’s my first calculator from when I was three.” He bent to retrieve it, and tripped over a phizzer, falling into a pile of them. “Cool! Captain Guitard won’t let me have one.” He grabbed a phizzer and pressed some of the buttons. “Zap! Kpow!” A red light began flashing on the weapon’s base.

“Ready for autodestruct,” said a bored computer voice.

“Whoops!” Nestley juggled the phizzer from hand to hand in a game of hot potato. “Um, a little help?”

Henry snatched the closest wand off a pile of knitted hats. “Expeli-arms!”

Nestley’s arms tumbled off, and the phizzer rolled under a pile of trubble-printed tea cozies.

“Henry, you numbskull!” Horrendous drew her own wand and aimed it at the pile. “Shields up!” The tea cozies wove themselves around the phizzer, forming an enormous ball of yarn. She glanced at Nestley. “That’s what you say around here, right?”

A disturbing humming rose.

“It’s gonna blow!” Nestley flung himself behind a barricade of Georgy Porgy’s slotted spoon glasses. Horrendous grabbed Henry and dragged him to the floor.

Yarn exploded everywhere.

“Pffff!” Spitting out fibers, Horrendous emerged from the pile. “Wow. That was actually the least annoying mess today.”

“Speak for yourself,” Henry said. He and Nestley had gotten the worst of the glue dribbles back in the infirmary and now looked like abominable yarn men. “Can we please get out of this universe before anything worse happens?”

“Where are we, anyway?” Nestley asked.

Horrendous eyed the heaps of yarn-shrouded books and action figures. “It’s like a big fandom archive, but from several universes.” She staggered and clutched at the wall. “Oh! Why didn’t I see it?”

“What?”

“We’re in crossover fiction!”

This revelation took a toll on the trio, who sat down heavily. “And a Nestley Crunch story at that,” Henry muttered.

“Hey, guys, I’ve got an idea,” Nestley said. “Why don’t we gather up all the space paraphernalia and sell it to collectors? When all that’s left is occult jewelry and wizard party favors, the morphic resonance of it all should create a bridge back to your own world. Or one that’s close enough, anyway.”

“That’s brilliant,” Horrendous said.

“It is?” Henry asked, blinking.

“What we need now is someone skilled with collectables and fan auctions and so forth,” Nestley mused.

“Are you kidding?” Henry asked. “I’ve been selling my autographed undershirts on elfBay for years.” *** Within the space of a paragraph, all the phizzers, toycorders, collector’s plates, locks of the captain’s hair, and so forth had gone to be dug out from fan garages every twenty years by unsympathetic spouses and sold to the next generation of collectors. They’d even managed to scrape off all the yarn and sell it to Dopey the elf.

The teens glanced about. Only crystal balls and dragon gizzards were left. A slow, swirling morphic field began to solidify. It was purple and stank of fake grape.

Nestley tapped his chest. “Crunch to Captain Guitard.”

“Nestley, when did I let you have a communicator?”

“When I promised not to break it, sir.” He dropped it, to the accompaniment of a clattering sound that reverberated like a dropped phone through the captain’s unpadded skull. “Oops.”

“Did you want something?” the captain growled.

“We’ve opened a portal to Henry and Horrendous’s own dimension, and they can return home,” Nestley said proudly.

“About time.”

“Captain, you promised to sign my space scout permission slip when I solved the next ship’s catastrophe.”

“I think you wore that one out with the ‘Acting Captain Crunch’ fiasco. Now make them go.”

“Wait!” Horrendous screeched. “If we go home, we’ll be eaten by Demeanies!”

“Mr. Crunch, prepare to send them home. We’ll transplode you the third one in a minute, when he’s finished his peanut butter sandwich.”

Beside him on the bridge, Biker cleared his throat. “Captain, it’s against regulations to send teens to their doom.”

“Blast. Since when?”

“Since Mr. Crunch was assigned here for meager comic relief. I believe the rule was put on the books by his mother.”

“I see.” Guitard eyed his first officer. “Sounds like a primo directive issue to me.”

“As in, Keep thy Hands to Thyself?”

“Precisely. They were dying before and they’ll be dying now, so we’re perfectly covered.”

“Captain!”

Guitard eyed Lieutenant Whiff with annoyance. “We’re trying to have a conference here.

You know I don’t appreciate expressions of alarm in the midst of a meeting.”

“But, Captain, anomalies are opening all around us!” Whiff suddenly sank through the floor.

Growling in dismay, he snatched the console in front of him, ripping it from its housing as he dragged himself to secure ground. Finally, he straddled the weakened spot, eying it as if daring it to dislodge him again. He glanced at the torn-off console and shrugged. On a previous occasion, he’d activated the weapons using only his Klinger glare.

“Guitard to Engineering. Mr. Waiter, are you still wearing the underwear?”

“Sir, according to galactic sexual harassment policy it is inappropriate for you to inquire—” “I mean on your head!”

“Oh. Yes sir.”

“Well, they seem to be attracting anomalies. Remove them immediately!”

“Sir, according to galactic sexual harassment policy it is inappropriate for you to order me to remove—” “Now!” Guitard eyed Ditzy. If he was breaking regulations anyway… “You too.”

“Have the anomalies stopped?” Nestley called plaintively. “Only, the purple swirling spot that was gonna transport Henry and Horrendous back has started to smell.”

“Similar to curdled milk or grape jelly beans?” Waiter enquired from Engineering.

“Jelly beans, definitely.”

“Ah. Then, Captain, the portal has become unstable and will most likely turn the children inside out upon arrival.”

“And that’s not how they started,” the captain mused. “The admirals might send me a pointed memo for that one.”

“The anomalies have stopped forming,” Whiff reported. “However, there are now so many that the universe may well rip open any minute under the pressure. And we’ve already incurred a high littering fine.”

“That’s it, we need a new plan,” Guitard said. “Preferably something useful.”

“Actually, Captain, traveling back in time a few hours and getting Waiter to remove his underwear should do it. And solve the teens’ issue too, if we send them back immediately after we get there.”

Guitard stared at Biker. “Did you just say all that?”

“Yes sir.”

“Are you having a stroke?”

“What’s that?”

Guitard shook his head, trying to dismiss the speed bump the universe had just foisted on him. “Excellent. Now, Waiter, is any of them a temporal vortex? Or a temporal conduit? Or, indeed, anything with the word temporal in it? Or causality?”

Mr. Waiter tilted his head. “Captain, the one on our left is a “wish fulfillment” nexus, in which all of our desires are made manifest, including the desire to exit to anywhere and indeed anywhen. However, such is the seductive power of a universe in which, for instance, I might be human and you might have hair, that we are both unlikely to willingly leave without a motivational and heroic speech.”

Guitard glanced at Biker who shrugged, eloquently suggesting he was all out of material.

“Well, I can’t be bothered to draft one of those.” The captain rolled his eyes. “Forget it. Let’s just slingshot around the closest black hole.” Such an act was forbidden by the Primo Directive and every traffic law, but it frequently popped up anyway, when the universe grew too messy.

Sometimes even the captain needs a do-over.

Down in Engineering, Waiter began the countdown. “Mr. Porgy, insert spare power into our rubberiest basketball and prepare to fire. All decks, batten down the hatches, unplug your irons, and prepare to experience some static on the Biography Channel.”

“All decks report ready, sir,” Whiff said.

“Very well. Engage the deux ex time machina.”

Faster and faster they whirled around the black hole, using its gravity to propel them back to when the teens had first crossed into science fiction.

The engine strained like spaghetti, but it still wasn’t enough. “Full power to the special effects budget!” the captain roared.

“Captain, special effects are offline!” Biker called.

“Then we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. Everyone, lean hard to the left and fall out of your chairs! One, two, three!”

On three, they all lunged from their seats as if the ship were shaking itself to pieces. But it wasn’t enough. Again and again they flung themselves across their steering wheels and out of their chairs. Swaying and struggling like a mime in a fake windstorm, Nestley Crunch staggered to the lightswitch and flicked it on and off to rev up the drama. But the black hole still engulfed them. At last, Ditzy Trip heroically stumbled across the entire bridge, somehow hurling herself upside-down against the elevator doors, which failed to open in time. As she bounced off the doors, she tumbled into Whiff (who was especially surly as he had missed his three afternoon workouts) and nearly had her head bitten off. This created enough tension to allow the Tastipize to tear itself from the black hole’s gravity. *** And so, the time jump set everything neatly in order, which was especially good as the Tastipize was on its last commercial break. The ship jumped back in time a full three hours, and the captain removed Mr. Waiter’s underwear and ordered him never to wear them again (which caused future problems but that’s another story). As the anomalies shut off one by one, the teens transploded to the fandom archive, where they sold the science fiction artifacts for a second set of profits. Again, the purple portal opened, but this time with a more genuine, healthy scent, like fresh-spilled grape juice on a woolen carpet.

Before its swirly gates, Nestley crushed Horrendous’s sweaty palms between his own. “Will I ever see you again?”

“Only if there’s a sequel crossover,” Horrendous said sadly. “Try not to hit puberty before I do, all right?”

“Oh, no chance of that,” he replied, voice squeaking. “Good luck with the evil wizards and magic and all.”

“And certain death,” Henry added eagerly. “Don’t forget the certain death.”

“Do we have to?” Really Wimpy whimpered.

“It keeps readers’ interest. Look around.” Henry pointed meaningfully at the boxes of fake eyeglasses and even larger empty boxes of science fiction uniforms and action figures. “We’ve got forty years of franchise to compete with if we wanna be as big as them. Bigger. Bigger than them. That’s what I meant.”

“You think you can eclipse our show?” Nestley asked, eyes widening from saucer to bowling ball size. “Do you even have a whiny teen?”

“Hundreds,” Really said.

“Want to come?” This predictably was Horrendous.

“Golly, no. Here I’m unique. And the captain keeps announcing he’s reducing the teen population, so there may be even fewer soon.”

“I thought you’re the only one—” Horrendous said.

“Well then, best of luck,” Henry said quickly. He did well enough with one person smarter than him on his team. At least the teachers were no competition. He bravely led his friends through the portal, gallantly encouraging both of them to precede him. There was no telling what was on the other side, after all: The inside of a dragon, the Ministry of Muckups putting him on trial, Professor Snort’s hanky closet. All of these at once or worse. *** In fact, it was the nurse’s station. The infirmary at Chickenfeet Academy was so determinedly cheerful that it was downright disturbing. Nurses flounced around looking pleasant

and capable with platinum-blonde hair, crisp white uniforms, and platinum-blonde shoes. This only served to lull students into false security before a thermometer was shoved in undignified places.

“Let’s get out of here,” Henry hissed. The trio snuck into the nearest hospital room, turned on the television, and booted the patient out into the hallway. Luckily it was just Noodle Loudbottom who was having one of his embarrassing little problems.

“So we’ve traveled back in time,” Horrendous said, indicating the wall clock on the minddullingly beige wall. “Now we can free Cereals Back and save the world. Again.”

“Are you kidding?’ Henry asked. “There are more important things at stake now!”

“Like what?” asked Really.

“We need to get into movies! Try for some bigger books too. I could see myself doing seven hundred pages of heroics.”

Horrendous rolled her eyes. “Why not just enroll in a Wizard Triathlon or something?”

“Maybe I will. Wow, what’s that?” Something shiny was sticking out of Horrendous’s pocket.

“I kept one of those wizard toys.” She held up an hourglass pendent. “I was so busy doing your homework I didn’t have any time for my own lessons. Maybe with this, I can go back and take a few classes.” She regarded the swirling, shiny pendent. “Or all the classes. Wouldn’t that be something?” She eyed the somewhat crestfallen Really Wimpy. “Oh, hey, don’t worry. I got something for you too.”

He sniffed. “What?”

Horrendous held out a fluffy hamster. “Since your pet chinchilla was an evil spy for Lord Revolting and all.”

“Wow, jeepers, thanks,” Really said, tucking it into his pocket beside some pilfered trading cards.

Henry raised his wand. “Guess we’d better go save Cereals. Again.”

“Once more and he’ll be eligible for frequent flyer,” Horrendous muttered.

And they were off. Again. *** Meanwhile, in a galaxy not far enough away…

“What do you mean the ship won’t go!” Guitard demanded.

“Sir, the little hamster has been stolen.”

“What do we do?”

“We could ask a dozen ensigns to get out and push.”

“Any other options?”

“Only if we learn how to actually use antimatter.”

“I see.” Guitard considered. “Round up some ensigns.”

And they boldly went. *** “Henry, Cereals’ dying! We’ve got to save him,” Horrendous screeched. Again.

“Isn’t he evil?” Really asked.

Up ahead lay Cereals Back, Demeanies swarming from all directions. His brains had mostly finished dribbling. Really Wimpy started to shake.

“How can we have gotten here so late?” Henry Potty asked. “This is time travel!”

“You insisted on stopping for burgers,” Really mumbled.

“Oh, right. Do-over?”

*** “Henry, Cereals’ dying! We’ve got to save him,” Horrendous screeched. Again. Very much so. Ahead, they could see Cereals wasn’t entirely dead yet.

“Isn’t he evil?” Really asked. “Wait, didn’t I just ask that?”

“Back here again!” Horrendous moaned. “At least I’m getting credit for all my appearances.”

“Can we rescue him this time?” Really asked. He felt more confused than usual.

“Sure,” Henry said. “And we’re hours ahead of schedule. You guys need to get Cereals onto the hippogriff and check him into a nice hotel, maybe with one of those fake-nose-and-mustache disguises. Then while the past us is running in circles saving ourselves and hanging out with science fiction geeks, we just need to wait it out.”

“And make sure the Demeanies don’t eat your former self. That would be bad,” Horrendous concluded in the understatement of the century. “I’ll handle the hotel.”

“Great. I’ll just grab some demeanie-fighting gear, and Really and I—” “Have to settle in my new hamster,” Really objected hastily.

“Brilliant. More glory for me. I’ll face the Demeanies, even though they’re my worst fear.”

“I thought your worst fear was spoilers,” said Horrendous.

“Or one of those twenty-year-later sequels with the crystal skull aliens and a plot that makes no sense.”

Henry shuddered. “Y’know, you guys aren’t helping. Still, there’s only one way to save the Wizarding World from all those horrible things. Now circle low and grab Cereals while I stride into certain death.” *** On the frozen lake, the Demeanies clustered around Cereals Back. His breathing was growing shallower, rattling in his chest. Beside him, Henry Potty mark one was in an even worse state. One of the Demeanies hissed. “Give usss the ring.”

“Do you like scary movies?” another snickered. Then Henry Potty, chosen one extraordinaire, realized what he must do. He laid down his wand and walked unflinching into the Demeanies’ midst.

Immediately, four of them tried to unscrew his head while three more clustered, eager to share in the feast. Suddenly, all trembled. “It burnssss…It burnsss usss!” they hissed. And the Demeanies melted away, into sad little puddles of black goo that stank of audit forms. Henry Potty smirked. “Guess I didn’t have what you brain suckers were looking for.” Once again, his “special abilities” had saved the day.

The Terrifying Castle of Terror: An Original Generic Fantasy The castle rose before them, dark and foreboding. Lightning thundered. Thunder lightninged. Tall gothic towers towered over the heroes, burying them in silky, scintillating shadows of darkness and despair.

Joko looked up from his handy pocket map. “According to this, we should be arriving at the Terrifying Castle of Terror any minute. Our search for the golden armor will finally end.”

Priscilla gave him an incredulous look, and then returned to buffing her nails. Their rosy polish matched the rest of her perfectly-coordinated outfit, down to the fushia bow on her quarterstaff.

Lance knocked on the tower door. Priscilla winced as the gleam of his armor blinded her in the setting sunlight. It was not quite as bright as his dazzling grin. “Will the master of this castle grant us shelter for the night? My companions are footsore and weary from our long journey.”

“And suede just cannot get wet,” Priscilla added.

Crumb the Barbarian, as always the last member of their party, thumped his six foot club on the ground to show his agreement. His suede loincloth tended to shrink when rained on.

“None may enter.” The voice echoed through the valley like a rushing torrent, a crashing wave, a voluminous echo from the dawn of time. Priscilla felt her chest heaving with the pressure, and felt a sudden longing to be wearing a loose, white nightgown with frilly sleeves.

“But we’ve been sent here on a quest,” Lance said, brain stuck in a world where things had to work a certain way. “We have traveled long and far, seeking a suit of armor of solid gold.

Therefore, you cannot forbid us entrance.”

“Yes I can.”

Lance looked as if he would have a seizure.

“If you let us in, I’ll play for our suppers,” Joko offered, brandishing his lute like a grenade with the pin missing.

Priscilla closed her eyes. “The last time you did that, we got covered in vomit. And they made us pay for their ear surgery.”

Footfalls echoed across the moor. A young woman raced up to the castle as if demons perused her. With her last gasp, she hurried up to the adventurers. Her impractical black silk gown hung off one shoulder, revealing the pale, trembling, heaving skin beneath. “Please, good sirs and madam, help me! I have traveled a long and weary journey across the country to be the governess to two sweet and talented children whom I have never met. The mysterious gentleman who hired me in London refused to give his name, or any details about my employment, yet for the love of my ailing mother, who could no longer afford to have me in the house, with all my boyfriends tracking mud on the floor and drinking all of her liquor, I accepted the job. I know nothing of my employer, not even his name, only that he simultaneously attracts me and repels me, making my heart beat faster, as my breath heaves in my bosom. Tell me, travelers, is this the Terrifying Castle of Terror?”

“So you have come.” The voice echoed from the very depths of the ground in front of them, like a voice from beyond the grave. In fact, it was. “You shall be my bride throughout eternity, sharing my deathless existence and warming it with the fire of true love.”

Joko nudged Crumb. “Got any popcorn?”

The vampire rose from the earth in a fast gush, like a Texas oil well. He was dark and nearly as greasy. His hair gleamed, slick and crusty. A long cape swirled around his short, pimply body. (Well, all that grease overwhelms the skin).

The governess clasped her hands over her heart. “I am innocent and good. Your evil cannot touch me. You shall never have my blood, wellspring of my heart, life that beats through my veins.”

The vampire licked his blood-red lips slowly, as he watched her. “Did you at least bring the ketchup? I have burgers on the barbecue.”

“Oh, here.” As if offering her greatest treasure, the governess reached into her tightly-laced blouse and produced the bottle. “You’ll have to shake it hard; most is stuck at the bottom,” she said, tears racing down her cheeks as she offered up her only condiment. “Treasure it well.”

The vampire dashed the bottle to the ground, shattering it. He lowered a finger into the oozing liquid and licked it with a forked tongue. “At last, you are mine. Know you not that when two souls drink from the same ketchup bottle, they are joined forever?”

Her forehead wrinkled. “How can a soul drink?”

“I was being metaphoric,” he thundered. “Now that we have consecrated our marriage through the tomato’s oozing heartblood, you must follow me to my coffin.”

“Never!” she cried. “I would rather wear a fuzzy pink bathrobe without a trace of lace or transparency. I would rather sleep in a sensible room with striped wallpaper and a teddy bear nightlight, instead of French windows with billowing white curtains. I would rather—I would rather die! “ “So be it,” he thundered a second time, with a touch of lightning. “If it must be so, then so shall it be. Together we shall enjoy the horrors of suburbia, with Volkswagens, screaming children, insurance salesmen, and even,” he drew his breath in dramatically, “tupperware parties!”

“Noooooooo!” the governess screamed, but it was too late. The vampire drew her close and, with a whisk of his cape, he transformed into a bedraggled London swallow. Bearing a slightly smaller swallow still dressed in a clinging black silk gown with a low cut neckline, the vampire swallow flew off to suburbia and their doom.

“Could you pick me up a lasagna?” Joko shouted after them.

A man looking more like a rotting, putrescent corpse than, say, a vacuum cleaner salesman emerged from a hidden door into the cellar. “Turn back. Tuuuurn back. Do not enter. For death awaits you here. I have survived, to pass on my tale and greatest secret. The papers are buried in the…arggh!” He dropped to the ground, cold and rotting.

“The arbor?” Joko asked. “Papers like a will?”

“No, ‘argh’ is what he said because he was dying,” Priscilla explained. “Look, he’s liquefying! Ew, when I said I wanted a breakfast smoothie, I didn’t actually mean it!”

Lance swiped the dead puddle with a finger and held it to his tongue. “Eleventh century.

Turnip-fed with a bouquet of unwashed undergarments. Yes, he has been dead for almost a century.”

Priscilla shuddered. “Don’t eat that, you don’t know where it’s been.”

Creaking like a distressed rocking chair, the door opened a few inches. The adventurers entered, Lance strutting proudly, Joko scanning for unguarded loot.

An ax dropped across their path. The adventurers looked up to find a tall, menacing suit of armor gripping the other end.

“Hello, good sir, or should I say, good suit.” Lance grinned, lighting up the hall. “Could you perchance direct us to a ferocious monster guarding a suit of solid gold armor?”

“None may pass with arms,” the armor creaked. “Check your weapons here.”

Lance glanced down at his gleaming sword. “I have mine.”

“Leave them.”

Lance’s jaw dropped in horror. “Abandon Agelfraster, sword of the ages? Never.”

“And I shall never lay down my mystical weapon, um, Dragonhurler!” Joko proclaimed.

“I saw you steal that spatula from the junkyard of the last village we passed,” Priscilla said.

“Then you tried to barter it for half a pint of lukewarm ale in the next village. But no one wanted it.”

“All the same,” Joko said, sensing that he was losing momentum. “I shall not abandon it.”

“Then I shall take your head in its place, “the armor creaked.

“On second thought, here’s my spatula…er, valiant weapon,” Joko mumbled. “And a bunch of daggers I made by sharpening tin cans.”

Crumb laid his club reverently beside them, pausing to stroke it farewell. He removed a heavy, spiky sash and placed it beside the club.

Joko scratched his head. “Crumb, why do you wear that spiky sash?”

Crumb grunted something that might have been, “Miss Medieval, 980.”

Priscilla hugged him. “Wow, Crumb, you’re my hero.” She abandoned her quarterstaff, and then removed a carefully sheathed dagger that she had been somewhat unrealistically carrying inside her cleavage.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Joko said. “And here I thought you had three of those in your blouse.”

Priscilla tossed her hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lance straightened, tossing his long manly hair. “Well, if discarding weapons will make me your hero, then how can I resist? Even if I must lose my beloved Agelfraster. So be it, then. If it must be so, so shall it be. Let it, in so being—” “Just drop the weapons, pal,” the armor barked. “If I cut off your head you’d probably talk less.”

The sword clattered to the ground.

The armor seemed to grin. “Fear not, adventurers. For triumph shall come without weapons.

Your destiny is secure.”

“Cool. So where’s the golden armor?” Priscilla asked.

“Upstairs on your right. As you go up, please note the medieval tapestries dating back to the medieval era. Don’t forget to step on the trap door that will send you plummeting to your death with long, echoing screams. And it wouldn’t hurt to give your doorman a tip.”

“Here’s one,” Joko said as he stepped past the guardian. “Stop threatening people.”

“And try to make friends,” Priscilla said.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the armor called menacingly.

Priscilla’s hands landed on her stout hips. “Hey! You promised us victory.”

“I didn’t say whose.”

Joko dug in his jacket and found a can of sheep rump he had stolen from the Hunchbutt of Notre Dumb’s house. With perfect accuracy, he beaned the suit of armor with it, denting the helmet so the jaw no longer opened. Then Joko scurried to catch up with his friends.

His friends were waiting outside the ladies’ room.

Lance fidgeted and paced. At last, he tapped on the door.

“Priscilla, are you coming out?”

“Stop rushing me. You know girls take longer.”

“Forgive me, but it’s been forty minutes.”

“I know. I’m getting reacquainted with real toilet paper.

“Toilet paper!” Joko shouted, dashing into the adjoining men’s room. “Let’s take it all! No more leaves.”

“I take it the poison ivy healed?” Lance enquired solicitously.

A piercing scream erupted.

Lance jumped. “Priscilla, what’s wrong? I wish to rescue you, but cannot possibly invade the ladies bathroom to do so. Oh dear, what a hero’s quandary. Come out, and I’ll rescue you right away.”

“That wasn’t me,” Priscilla said, as another girlish shriek sounded in the men’s room.

Lance dashed inside to find Joko staring into a cubicle, horror tidalwaving over his features.

“Aargh! The watcher in the toilet!”

Lance eyed the toilet bowl in dismay. While he was perfectly thrilled to battle monsters, this wasn’t what he had in mind. “Shall I procure thee a plunger?”

“No, look! A hideous creature peering out of the bowl, half ape, half man, with close-set, beady eyes! Help!”

“Methinks you need not worry, dear companion. ‘Tis a reflection.” Lance peered into the bowl. “Ah, manly.”

“Oh stop admiring yourself in the toilet,” Priscilla huffed. She had followed him in, having no compunctions about entering the wrong bathrooms, especially since the men’s room was always closer to the entrance. Besides, little boys in magical schools did it all the time.

Crumb stamped on the floor to hurry them along, producing a mild earthquake.

“Be very, very quiet.” Priscilla hissed.

“We’re hunting snarfgigplatts,” Joko added.

“Forsooth, I think there is but one.”

“Oh, shut up.”

One by one, they climbed the winding steps into the tower. When they arrived at the top, Crumb kicked the door down with a single clomp. (It was unlocked, but Crumb rarely checked.)

Priscilla ducked past Crumb and hurried into the room, and then gasped. And gasped. The long climb had triggered an asthma attack.

The snarfgigplatt reared its ugly head (not to mention its uglier rear). As the legends had whispered, it possessed the wings of a snapping turtle, the hair of a snake, the antlers of a wolf, and the teeth of a chicken.

Lance stared at the monster, and then shook his head briskly. “Joko, old boy, what on earth was in that breakfast this morning?”

“Nothing,” Joko said, voice trembling. “Someone just called a meeting of the ugly convention, that’s all.”

“Lance, what shall we do?” Priscilla asked, leaning dangerously against her hero.

“I…fear I do not know. I’m a leader; I shouldn’t have to make decisions,” Lance protested, brow furrowing.

“Can’t you fight it?” Joko asked.

“I’m too handsome to fight, prithee, what is your excuse?” Lance turned. “Priscilla? You enjoy ordering people to go this way and that. Have you a proposal?”

“A proposal?” she squealed, despite the inappropriate timing.

“A suggestion,” Lance quickly amended.

“Well, are we sure that it’s a big monster? Or could it be pretending to be big?”

“Hmm. Crumb, dear boy, do you think the monster as large as it appears? Or is it an illusion?”

Crumb considered for a long moment. “Ask Joko. He’s inside the monster.”

“The question is, how do we rescue him?” Lance asked.

“Or should we?” Priscilla chimed in.

Crumb scratched his head, two questions being a bit beyond him.

Lance straightened. “I have the means to save our beloved, yet crude companion. We must tickle the snarfgigplatt until it vomits our dear friend up.”

“Wouldn’t we have to be inside it?” Priscilla asked.

“Well thought. Instead we shall try a suppository.”

Crumb offered them one without comment.

The next few moments were too disgusting for any biographer to chronicle, though they ended with Joko’s eventual (and thoroughly disgusting) reappearance. Joko climbed to his feet, slipping on things best left unmentioned. Joko gasped as he looked beyond the ferocious monster. “Look, a toilet.”

“I must confess, even snarfgigplatts must hear the tender call of inexorable nature.”

“Maybe Joko realizes that he smells like he belongs inside it,” Priscilla offered.

“No, don’t you get it?”

“I thought you just went,” Priscilla said.

Crumb suddenly erupted in a grunt of comprehension. He tore the entire toilet from its piping and heaved it straight at the befuddled snarfgigplatt.

As the toilet tilted in midair, the snargigplatt screeched in terror, metamorphosized into a cockatoo, and hurled itself out the window. The toilet crashed into the wall and spilled water everywhere.

Priscilla stared. “Joko, you defeated the monster!”

Crumb cleared his throat.

“With help,” she amended. “Why was the snarfgigplatt scared of a toilet?”

Joko preened. “Don’t you remember? It only fears itself.”

“And it’s ugly as a toilet?”

“I see my noisome comrade has learned cunning,” Lance said. “The creature feared its reflection in the bowl.”

“The armor is ours!” Priscilla cheered.

Joko eyed the gleaming suit of solid gold armor. It stood six feet tall, wide enough for an overweight man. Joko shoved the armor, then ran at in a full-body tackle. Joko thudded to the ground, moaning and rubbing all the parts of his body at once. The armor didn’t move. “Great.

How do you plan to carry it?”

And Introducing…The Farce-ians of the Galaxy, Coming 2015 MovieStar, AKA Quitter Pill MovieStar: You have lost your homes, and I will help you take them back, if I can.

The President: No. Just no. …

MovieStar: I feel like I was supposed to have growth in this movie: Y’know, fall in love, find my father, go back to earth and see the family I abandoned. Something.

The President: You can open one present now, but we’re saving everything else for the sequel.

MovieStar: Wow, this is all about continuing the giant franchise, isn’t it?

The President: We’re already making the action figures.

Bunny FooFoo MovieStar: Your power is…using big guns? We’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

Bunny FooFoo: Oh I have another power. (Puss in Boots style, his eyes went huge.) I can look so adorable as an animal sidekick that fans will pile into theaters.

MovieStar: You’re hired.

Drip the Vaccumer Drip: I invited the villain here.

MovieStar: Huh. Okay. Did you set a trap?

Drip: No. MovieStar: Convince the inhabitants to fight for you with a rousing speech? Warn them they’re in danger? Mine the entrance? Find out the villain’s weakness? (Pause) Get yourself a gun?

Drip: I will fight him with my righteous anger.

MovieStar: I see.

Glamma Girl Glamma: Wait, are you doing the Disney Villain Death? You know, you’re hanging by a finger, I try to pull you up, you slash at me, and slip on a banana peel and cause yourself to fall to your own death, leaving me cosmically in the clear?

Vapor: You’re mad. (She ripped off her own arm, used it to flip her sister off, and flung herself off the side of the ship.)

Glamma: Yeah. I’m mad. You’re the one who thinks bald looks good.

And Introducing…Grout (not the kind between the tiles) Grout: I am Grout.

MovieStar: Ya don’t say…

About the Author

Valerie Estelle Frankel was born at an early age. Since then, she’s taught writing to most grades, from kindergarten through high school, and survived with most of her limbs intact. She would have gone crazy long ago, except for her collection of singing potatoes. Valerie has won a Dream Realm Award, an Indie Excellence Award, and a USA Book News National Best Book Award for her Henry Potty parodies. She’s the author of An Unexpected Parody, and also over 20 books on pop culture since 2012, including From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey in Myth and Legend, Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey, Winning the Game of Thrones, Katniss the Cattail: A Guide to Names and Symbols in The Hunger Games, Teaching with Harry Potter, Joss Whedon’s Names, Sherlock: Every Canon Reference You May Have Missed in BBC’s Series 1-3, and Doctor Who - The What, Where, and How. Come explore her latest at VEFrankel.com.