Riding a Broken-down Booger

Chapter 1 - You can go this way or you can go that way

I'll show them what I can do. I'm not wandering in this field for just anything. Bush, bush, bush, all I see is bush. I'll discover something so extraordinary that my whole clan will marvel at my astounding abilities as an exquisite explorer. I'll...

Twuu, twuu, a bluish-black bird sings in the cloudless sky.

It's probably laughing at me also. I'll prove to everyone what I'm capable of. Get out of my way you lousy cricket. You're not worth taking home. No wondrous Willimagnificawallgog wanderer would ever...what's that noise? It's coming from behind that clump of trees. I better investigate. What are those? They can't be...they are. I didn't think I'd find them here. What's the taller one doing?

A green-eyed, freckle-faced girl jabs her finger into a boy’s chest, "and just who do you think you are?"

A boy with soft-brown eyes looks up at her and gulps, "Andrew, Andrew Scott Bare. Who are you?"

She leans toward him, "half the world west of the Gammagochi River and north of the Allmanus Highway knows who I am. My name is Penelope Favaboon."

Oh my, this is my most fortunate of days; human beings of the short-legged kind. Ah, the most trusting and curious of types.

He spreads his arms, "I'm not from those areas. I'm from here."

She narrows her eyes, "Here?"

He points, "Yes, across the field, over the bridge, three blocks down, turn left, and it's the last house on the right. We don't have a river called Gamma...."

Penelope twists one of her red pigtails, "Gammagochi, and we're not at your house right now are we?"

"No, I'm going to visit my grandma but first...."

She waves a hand, "No time for details. We have the most splendipulous venture ahead of us."

He wrinkles his nose, "splendipulous?"

"Yes, a glorious endeavor catching Willimagnificawallgogs or as my grandfather called them: Willywogs."

My ears perk up at the mention of my species. She's heard about us? How far has she traveled? Who does she know?

He raises his brows, "Willywogs; there's no such thing as Willywogs."

No such thing, I guess that brown-haired boy can't see me unless he wants to. Hmpf, if I bit him he'd know I exist.

Penelope throws open her arms, "is so. The whole world is filled with Willywogs. My grandfather, his grandfather, and his grandfather's grandfather have searched for Willywogs for hundreds and thousands of years."

"Searched but never caught any."

"Of course we have. My father's, father's uncle's brother caught a Willimagnificawallgog when he was shipwrecked on a deserted island; he lost only three fingers and his left baby toe wrestling it to the ground."

He's lucky that's all he lost.

Andrew’s eyes widen, "What did it look like?"

"It looked like no other creature seen before, or since. Anyway, long before it takes the time for an eyelash to flutter to the ground the Willywog shrunk itself down to the size of a pea, squeezed between my father's, father's uncles' brother's fingers, rolled to the ground and disappeared into a hole barely a horse's whisker away from him."

That story's been passed down from my ancestors. Hmm, there are only ten paces between the brown-haired boy the spindly-legged girl and myself. This encounter could be quite favorable for me.