Chapter 4
“Excuse me,” said Sallymae, “I really didn’t plan on...”
“Silence!” screamed a lady at the end of the table. “It’s bad enough that you had to drop in on us so rudely, but to have to listen to you babble so, is just too much.”
With that, the lady leaned across the table to Sallymae, grabbed her by the leg, and pulled her off the table onto the floor.
“Stand up!” screamed the same lady, “As long as you’re here, you might as well recite poetry for us.”
Sallymae stood up in front of all the staring people, not saying anything. Then it looked like the lady was about to scream again, so she said the first thing that came to her head:
Deranged globules
of inland clay
flow skyward
in a backward way
while royal children
and aardvarks play
with rejected plants
from across the bay.
The old queen mother
comes out to say
that it’s time for hiding
until end of day.
The children hide
while the aardvarks lay.
They know the game
and refuse to play.
Then from the sky
flows the inland clay
which now falls earthward
in a natural way.
Sallymae then looked at the people in their elegant evening clothes, and found that they were crying in each other’s arms.
“You’re the one,” sobbed the lady, “that our prophets foretold. In our holy books, it says that from above will one who will tell our history in poetry. You see, the reason we are underground, is because globules of clay fell from the sky and covered our kingdom. Our writings say that when the one from above recites this in poetry, we will all have to leave.”
With that, each member of the group turned into a cloud of steam and floated out the hold above the table, which Sallymae had fallen down.
Sallymae stared at the hole for a long period of time, and then fainted...
