I.
I.
MR. SCURRILOUS AND THE TURTLE

The turtle wished it were another butterscotch day,

but childhood was done, like so many things in here.

I should give it back, thought Mr. Scurrilous,

as if it weren't mine. No one's jealous after all.

Drag it up to the doorstep like a bone and yowl.

But the turtle soon departed and Mr. Scurrilous

ran in his sleep alone, woofing,

woofing through those lonely nights,

wondering if those neon lights are real,

until the turtle, returning, had to sigh.

Have we become so uneasy in our ignorance?

II.
FLAMINGO SUPPER

Some flamingoes couldn't look funny

after what they saw. They add you

to their collection and dip for shells.

Haughty Herman Gogo ate oysters

and invited the spiders to join him.

How can you be good? It's a system,

thought Herman. Only the spiders

weren't interested. All the others were.

But none of them could help Herman,

and soon the flamingoes turned away,

passing through the meal like a dream.

III.
CARNIE CABBAGE TRIED TO BE TOUGH

Brave Carnie Cabbage tried to be tough

without cheating at checkers, hoping

not to hurt Harley sitting so comfortable.

When all of a sudden Harley Hammerhead leaned

back into this cruel upholstery and remembered

that nothing lasts forever when you win.

And it's not as if they were the only ones

who could play checkers. Mystified Max and

Shuddering Sharon roll the checker chips

as far and try as hard to be as tough, too,

Harley. But Careful Carnie could not concede.

IV.
ABOARD THE FLOTSAM PRINCESS

Boarding the Flotsam Princess can be tricky,

not to mention curious, concluded Mam.

The luggage looms and sways so bulky.

Mademoiselle agreed, but saw it was really the rats,

all so anxious to find a free cabin, and once

they did, they wouldn't share with anyone.

"Here are paths unpawed by many of our age,

in any storm," said Mam, and held on tight.

Though it would only last heartbeats,

this could be the greatest thing.

V.
HERE INSIDE THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT

The armadillo winced at life often enough,

as if from inside a glove compartment.

"Fixing this thing can get ugly," he said.

Flopping about, parts everywhere. Fur flies,

and life gets catty. "But don't worry,"

Furts the Puss squinted contentment.

"We'll hold out. It's you and I, Buddy."

This was reassuring, but now it was time

to fetch the bisquits: a difficult proposition.

Who shall take over these bearings?

Purring, Puss reassured, and waited for the cakes.

VI.
MISS SCRAMBLED'S NEWEST RACE

"We could start a new race," proposed Miss Scrambled,

"Just for us." But Absalom Armadillo only winced,

"Never show your contempt," he said, curling up beside her.

Later they agreed that all the really big pettiness

was on the other side of the ocean. Still,

every man is alone, armadillos all the more.

"You were just another lover in a crowded bed,"

he admitted to himself. But how can you stop

being ridiculous and remain an armadillo?

Miss Scrambled sighed. "Not even Mom," she reasoned,

"Could indulge a self-pity like mine."

VII.
WE HERE AT HOMES

"Why isn't Miss Boxford here?" Eggs Fussy had to ask.

And the answer was: "Eggs, she must have gone on."

"To where?" asked Eggs. "To bigger and better things,"

said Teddy Washtop. But Eggs couldn't believe it,

so Teddy countered, "Can you think of an alternative?"

It was a sorrowful answer, and a sorrowful day.

The only thing left to do was read the papers.

When Miss Boxford finally arrived in places

she hadn't planned on, she admitted, "This may not be

what I was searching for. We guess what we want,

but when we get off the train no one knows us."

VIII.
HOWLING ON THE WAY DOWN

It was so hot they all took the ferris wheel.

At the top, the high wire walker said, "I'd take off

all this greasepaint if it would help."

But the real clowns don't get any laughs,

Hogsworth the Juggler knew, until they're imitated.

"Can even a complication as great as ours

justify a boredom like this?" he asked, and the

contortionist suggested: "If we could only accept our

passivity," but in that moment a thousand clowns howled

as the ferris wheel rolled down, and a thousand more

breathed in relief and fear on the way back up.

IX.
A PLACE IN THE SKY

Tumbled Tappy couldn't take the pressure.

And Pastor Pottley's peeving questions.

Are we good or bad? Driven, or pulled?

Pleasure, or pain? Some claimed we were,

but Tappy tentatively wished his name

were known to God, who is an altar in the sky

where doubt becomes hope: there he would

abandon the unanswered questions

and retreat, head bowed, like deserting

a fatherless babe on the hospital doorstep

just before opening time.

X.
FRIPPLE RETIES HIS KNOTS

Spammy the Spout continued shaking hands.

"We're unable to understand the situations

we have created for ourselves," he quoted,

"but why do we have to show off about it?"

Fripple the Faucet gathered the yarn in his wake.

Finally Spammy and Grafton wound it so tight

around their fingers it astounded Fripple.

He had to go off by himself. "They don't know

the evil," he whispered, back in bed,

"How could I have been so naive?"

From then on he kept the extra yarn for himself.

XI.
WHY ARCHIE CAN WAXED POETIC

"If we were the mercenaries of our fates

only on mondays," suggested Archie Arkansas,

but Cantalope Con interupted: "We couldn't

cook in the steamy kitchens of passion

on saturdays," he claimed, "and sunday

our footsteps wouldn't echoe less awed

through the supulcres of turmoil."

"But if we were," said Archie, "we'd be slaves

to our mistakes only on wednesdays."

Cantalope admitted hope, but Con Con Crocodile

lifted an eyelid halfway and disagreed.

XII.
MISS RACEY REASONS WITH THE HURRICANE

Life is so sad, said Miss Racey when she

did something different, knowing it was wrong

while she did it. Sometimes she tried to wink

at life, but that didn't seem to help.

When Jack Turnover suggested a warm storm shelter,

she decided to carry around a cushion wherever

she went. It's for the landings, she said.

But Jack humpfed and hawed until she went

straight to the governor to complain.

Jack, she said, is not doing what he should.

The hurricane had to roar with laughter.

XIII.
SARDINES IN THE PAW

Gruffling Gary snuffled the can and asked,

"Do sardines know about nights like this?

When the noodles have been so devoutly devoured,

and only the stars relive our desperate hunger?"

Even Waffle Walpole was unsure: was there really

a larger tin not even the stars can open,

to pick us out of our spicey oil?

But when Gary ruffled an ear up close, he heard

the startling resolution: "From now on, we take

only the best moments," he heard them agree,

"The very best, those we'll accept."

XIV.
HAMSTEAD'S HORRIBLE HAMSTERS

The hamsters came to Hamstead in herds,

to join the nervous, purloin the plenty

and coin the potty phrase, all in the fussiest ways,

till even the gerbils asked, "Where is Rodentville now?"

The roundest rabbits had rolled over to ponder

on their better sides, having had all the happiness

Hamstead could handle: only the rarest hares resolved

to do the reverse, and so it seemed a hamster's

politics had an end, though some of them swore

secretly, escaping unscathed, that there

would come a horrible, if hammy, revenge.

XV.
SCRUPLES AND THE ANTEATER

"No more compromises," swore Freddy Stonehenge.

But when the last ant was digested,

Alma Badger noticed a certain hesitancy onstage.

Skull in paw, she paused under the lamplights.

The spectators were beginning to look for peanuts,

so she nudged Freddy, desperate for a new cue.

But Freddy S. was so full, all he could say was,

"Whatever happened to the guy who invented the slinky?"

Alma felt like slinking away herself.

The spectators were soon looking under the benches,

but all they found were the shells.

XVI.
OUTSIDE THE VACUUM

"Let me live with my illusions," said Hercules the Bunny,

and they did, turning over in their zippered cocoons.

A true card player is cushioned against introspection,

but still Hercules wished he knew another way to be a hero.

"I can tell right now there's not going to be much confetti

blowing when my ship pulls away," he muttered.

When Scabby got back from hunting carnival clowns,

he saw Hercules sitting there and had to sigh,

"I wonder how it is down there. Outside the vacuum,

I mean." But by now, Hercules knew it wasn't,

and never was. Everyone else was just learning that,

so the Bunny would hide his aces just to get attention.

XVII.
SEDUCTION AND DUANE

"You were a piece of meat when you met me,"

said Penny, Princess of the Pastures.

"You weren't even worth a good laugh."

Doghouse Duane would have jumped ship then and there,

but it took all the courage he had just to be ashamed.

Glistening seductively in her rain puddle,

Suzy the Sheep Queen didn't even bleet.

"You promised me brass bands and cash prizes,"

lowed Penny, "And what do I get? Another muddy sheep

and one crisis after the next.

So go find yourself another chicken, Duane,

and take that elephant gun with you."

XVIII.
ARMADILLO LOVE

Jinxed Jimmy the Mallard could tell

things were going downhill around the pond.

When he said "I feel like an object" Monday,

all she replied was, "What of?" When he asked again

Tuesday, she snapped, "Just remember,

you're not the only object in this house."

He wasn't sure he wanted to hear Wednesday's answer,

so he tried another line instead. "Why is a woman's lust

so cute, but a man's desire so dirty?"

"I don't know," she answered, pounding nails,

"But we can cook better too." For years after that,

Jimmy would sneeze whenever he saw an armadillo.