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Rumplemuss the Dirty Wanderer had a grimy old cotton swab in his mouth, which he chewed slowly as if it tasted good; but it didn't. There was a tonguefruit tree beside the road on which he was wandering, and some of the balnut-sized fruit had fallen to the ground. The Dirty Wanderer thought they would taste better than the cotton swab, so he walked over to get some. Suddenly a little brown and white puppy dog yokai with bright brown eyes and two glistening antennae appeared. The small creature dashed madly toward the wanderer, who had already picked up three tonguefruits and put them in one of the big wide pockets of his dirty coat. The little dog yipped, and made a dive for the Dirty Wanderer's leg; but he grabbed the dog by the neck and put it in his big pocket along with the tonguefruits. He took more tonguefruits, afterward, for many tonguefruits were on the ground; and each tonguefruit that he tossed into his pocket hit the little dog somewhere upon the head or back, and made her growl. The little yokai’s name was Elvira Daisy Shingles, and she was sorry she had been put in the stranger's stinky moist pocket.

The Dirty Wanderer heard voices approaching.

“Look, Pucas! Tonguefruit!”

A portly 14-year-old girl with wavy blond hair and a small, mauve, felt-skinned boy were huffing and puffing towards him. The small hairless boy had a round tummy and thin limbs, and his round head had no ears or eyes or nose, just a wide unsmiling mouth. He wore thick thaumaturgic glasses with eyes in the lenses so he could see. The chubby tween wore a thick chunky boots and a dark blue jumpsuit with a maroon stripe down one side; the little boy wore a black hoodie, blue T-shirt with a salammoniac icon in it, and black trousers. Both looked dirty- almost as dirty as the Dirty Wanderer- and their sneakers were worn out, as if they had been wandering through a kitty litter desert for days.

The boy and girl started ravenously devouring tonguefruits.

“Hello, fellow travelers,” said the Dirty Wanderer. “I’m Rumplemuss, folks call me the Dirty Wanderer. Where are you two from?”

In between huge bites of tonguefruit the little mauve boy said:

“Don’t know.”

“We’ve been lost in the desert for days, we’re famished,” explained the girl, whose face was now smeared with tonguefruit juice. “My name is Montana Shingles, but you can call me ‘Mono’ like my friends do. Even though we just met I feel like I really, really like and trust you.”

“Me too,” said Pucas. Rumplemuss smiled.

“This is Pucas. We’re trying to get to Schmegma City for a meeting with the tremorroid, but a giant veiny peegul picked us up and was carrying us towards the ocean when suddenly it had a massive heart attack and died and we crashed in a really, really gross and clumpy desert.”

Pucas had eaten seven tonguefruits, including the pits, and his stomach had begun to rumble.

“So, you two were stranded in the Yizkor Desert? You’re a long way from Schmegma City. In fact, we’re not even in Bonertania, this is southern Farshtunkener," said Rumplemuss, putting his hands in his coat pockets. Vira grabbed a finger and bit it; the Dirty Wanderer took his hand out of that pocket quickly, and said "Oooff!"

He put his hand in his side-pocket and drew out an tonguefruit- quick, before Vira could bite him again. The little dog got her head out this time and said "BAWK!" so loudly that it made young Mono jump.

"Oh Vi Pie!" she cried; "I almost forgot about you! What are you doing in there?"

"She’s guarding these tonguefruits in my pocket, so no one would steal them."

With one hand the Dirty Wanderer held the tonguefruit, which he began eating, while with the other hand he pulled Vira out of his pocket and dropped her to the ground. Of course Vira made for Mono at once, barking joyfully at her release from the dank pocket and standing up on her hind legs as she was oft wont to do. After the tween had lovingly patted her the puppy dog yokai sat down, her pink tongue hanging out one side of her mouth, and looked up into Mono’s face with her bright brown eyes, as if asking her what they should do next. Mono fed her little friend some chunks of tonguefruit.

Pucas ran behind the tonguefruit tree and puked his guts up.

“Don’t mind him,” said Mono to Rumplemuss, “He does that a lot.”

“Me too, depending on how much alien feces ale I’ve had” said Rumplemuss, grinning.

Mono looked anxiously down the road.

“Where do you suppose this road goes to?" asked the Toosh Island tween.

"Roads," observed the Dirty Wanderer, "don't go anywhere. They stay in one place, so folks can walk on them. You know, I’ve always wanted to go to Schmegma City, maybe go on a few studio tours. I’ve never been to Bonertania before. Do you mind if I travel with you, Miss Montana Shingles?”

“Of course!,” said Mono, smiling. “And call me Mono!”

“Let’s go,” said Pucas, wiping his gooey mouth off with his hoodie sleeve. The travelers started walking north by northeast.

This road curved this way and that- winding through meadows and fields covered with miles of wild roachberry bushes and prickferns and past groups of shady skunktrees. There were no chalets or quonset huts or wigwams or outhouses or video stores or movie theaters of any sort to be seen, and for some distance they met with no living creature at all except for the occasional incontinent salamander that ran squirting across their path.

Montana Shingles kept on beside Rumplemuss the Dirty Wanderer, who whistled cheerful tunes to beguile the journey. Young Pucas and Elvira Daisy Shingles the Antennaed Puppy Dog Yokai followed behind them. By-and-by they followed a turn in the road and saw before them a giant totem pole with five ghoulish faces making a shady spot over the path.

Just then Pucas leaned over and vomited his guts out. “Bllaaaarrrffff!”

“Yumpin’ Yiminy!” exclaimed Rumplemuss.

“Sorry,” said Pucas, wiping his mouth. “Ate too many roachberries.”

“Roachberries aren’t for eating,” said Rumplemuss. “They’re for smoking!”

“No wonder you got sick,” Mono said. Then Pucas vomited again, almost as much as last time.”

“Do you really always vomit this much?” asked Rumplemuss.

“Pretty much.” replied Pucas.

Vira eagerly ran to the puddle of spew and lapped some up.

“Ew, Vi Pie!” said Mono, laughing. “Enough!” She picked the tiny brown-and-white puppy dog up. “Do you think we’re going the right way?” she asked Rumplemuss

“I don’t know, Mono,” answered Rumplemuss. “I've learned from long experience that every road leads somewhere, or there wouldn't be any road; so it's likely that if we travel long enough we will come to some place or another in the end. What place it will be we can't even guess at this moment, but we're sure to find out when we get there."

"Why, yes," said Mono; "that seems reasonable, Rumple.”

Pucas took the Dirty Wanderer's hand and they started on, with Mono on one side, and Vira on the other, the little party trudging along more cheerfully than you might have supposed.

Since she had started visiting Pus Continent the tween was getting used to queer adventures, which interested her very much. Pucas didn't seem a bit afraid or worried because he was lost, and the Dirty Wanderer had no home, so he was as happy in one place as in another. Vira just wanted to be wherever Mono was.

Before the travelers appeared a rocky brown plain covered with hills on which grew nothing green. They were nearing some low mountains, too, and the road, which before had been smooth and pleasant to walk upon, grew rough and uneven. Vira had disappeared from view, but they could hear her yipping among the heaps of grey rock ahead of them.

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They moved forward a little faster to see what the dog was barking at, and found her barking at a curious brown creature covered in whiteheads perched upon a point of rock by the roadside. Thick veins worked their way in between the creature’s blemishes, blue and green and black and all slightly pulsating.

"What in the world do you suppose that is?" asked Mono in a hushed voice, as the little group of travelers stood watching the strange creature.

"Don't know," said Pucas.

The thing gave a jump and turned half around, sitting in the same place but with the other side of its body facing them. Instead of being brown, it was now a sickly pink, with a litany of swollen blackheads. The creature could bend either way, and its pink toes now curled the same way the brown ones on the other side had done. Thick veins worked their way in between the creature’s blemishes, blue and green and black and all slightly pulsating.

"It has a face both front and back," whispered Mono, wonderingly; "only there's no back at all, but two fronts."

Having made the turn, the being sat motionless as before, while Vira barked louder at the pink man than she had done at the brown one.

"Once," said Rumplemuss, "I had a marionette like that, with two faces."

"Was it alive?" asked Pucas.

"No," replied Rumplemuss; "it worked on strings, and was made of fleshwood."

"Look!" cried Mono, for another creature just like the first had suddenly appeared sitting on another rock, its brown side toward them. The two twisted their heads around and showed a brown face on the pink side of one and a pink face on the brown side of the other. They began making an unsettling insect-like clicking noise.

The creatures flopped first one way and then the other, showing brown or pink by turns; and now another joined them, appearing on another rock, all making clicking noises. Our friends had come to a little hollow in the hills, and the place where they now stood was surrounded by jagged peaks of rock, except where the road ran through.

"Now there are four of them," said Rumplemuss.

"Five," declared Mono..

"Lots!" cried Pucas; and so there were- quite a row of the two-sided brown and pink creatures sitting on the rocks all around.

Vira stopped barking and ran between Mono's feet, where she crouched down, terrified. The creatures did not look pleasant or friendly, to be sure, and Rumplemuss' face became solemn, indeed.

“Don't worry, Pucas,” said Mono, “Rumple will take care of us."

"Will he?" asked Pucas, who kept close to Mono.

"My enchanted speculum will save us,” said Rumplemuss

"An enchanted speculum! Why, what's that?" asked Mono

He reached into his coat pocket and took out a speculum, about the size of a handgun. It was dull and grey and a little rusty, and not very pretty.

"This is the wonderful enchanted speculum. It was given to me by a slurpin’ sherpa on the tip of Prastayt Promontory, and if I point it towards someone and squeeze it they will love me dearly forever."

"Why didn't the slurping sherpa keep it?" Mono asked, looking at the speculum with interest.

"He got tired being loved and longed for some one to hate him. So he gave me the speculum and the very next day a schlub-sniggurath ate him.” Rumplemuss cleared his throat, hocked up a loogie, and stepped towards the creatures. He said in the most confident voice he could muster:

"Who are you?"

"Decapitroids!" they yelled in chorus, their voices sharp and shrill.

"What do you want?" called Rumplemuss.

"You!" they yelled, pointing their thin fingers at the group; and they all flopped around, so they were pink, and then all flopped back again, so they were brown.

Rumplemuss pointed the enchanted speculum at them.

"Don't you love me?"

"Yes!" they shouted, all together.

"Then you mustn't harm me, or my friends," said Rumplemuss, firmly.

"We love you... in stew!" they yelled, and in a flash turned their pink sides to the front. They started clicking even louder.

"Goodness me!" said Mono, trembling a little; "the Decapitroids must be regular cannibals."

"Don't wanna be stew," protested Pucas, and Vira began to whine dismally, as if she didn't want to be stew, either.

"The only thing to do," whispered Rumplemuss to his friends, putting the speculum back in his pocket, "is to get out of these rocks as soon as we can, and leave the Decapitroids behind us. Follow me, friends, and don't pay any attention to what they do or say."

With this he began to march along the road to the opening in the rocks ahead, and the others kept close behind him. But the Decapitroids closed up in front, as if to bar their way, and so Rumplemuss stooped down and picked up a loose stone, which he threw at the creatures to scare them from the path.

At this the Decapitroids raised a howl. Two of them picked their heads from their shoulders with a loud ripping noise and hurled them at Rumplemuss with such force that he fell over in a heap, greatly astonished. The two now ran forward with swift leaps, caught up their heads, and put them on again, after which they sprang back to their positions on the rocks.

Rumplemuss got up and felt of himself to see if he was hurt; but he was not. One of the heads had struck his breast and the other his left shoulder; yet though they had knocked him down the heads were not hard enough to bruise him.

"Come on," he said, firmly; "we've got to get out of here some way," and forward he started again.

The Decapitroids all began clicking at a deafening level, tearing off and throwing their heads in great numbers at our frightened friends. Rumplemuss was knocked over again, and so was Pucas, who kicked his heels against the ground and howled as loud as he could, although he was not hurt a bit. One head struck Vira, who first yelped and then grabbed the head by an ear and started running away with it.

The Decapitroids who had thrown their heads began to scramble down and run to pick them up, with wonderful quickness; but the one whose head Vira had stolen found it hard to get it back again. The head couldn't see the body with either pair of its eyes, because the dog was in the way, so the headless Decapitroid stumbled around over the rocks and tripped on them more than once in its effort to regain its top. Vira was trying to get outside the rocks and roll the head down the hill; but some of the other Decapitroids came to the rescue of their unfortunate comrade and pelted the dog with their own heads until she was obliged to drop her burden and hurry back to Mono. Somehow our heroes were able to extricate themselves. Mono picked up Vira and Rumplemuss picked up Pucas and they ran until they reached a bridge over a deep gulf.

The pink-and-brown yokai chittered somehow even louder. Mono and Vira had begun crossing the bridge when the Decapitroids began throwing their heads. One of the queer missiles struck Rumplemuss on his back and nearly knocked him over so he set down Pucas and told the boy to run across the bridge to Mono.

Then Rumplemuss turned around and faced his enemies, standing just outside the opening, and as fast as they threw their heads at him he caught them and tossed them into the gulf below. The headless bodies of the foremost Decapitroids kept the others from running close up, but they also threw their heads in an effort to stop the escaping prisoners. Rumplemuss caught them all and sent them whirling down into the black gulf.

Presently every Decapitroid of the lot had thrown its head, and every head was down in the deep gulf, and now the helpless bodies of the creatures were mixed together and wriggling around in a vain attempt to discover what had become of their heads. Rumplemuss laughed and walked across the bridge to rejoin his companions.

"It's lucky I learned to play squishball when I was young," he remarked, "for I caught all those heads easily, and never missed one. But come along, little ones; the Decapitroids won’t hassle us any more."

Three and a half weeks later they reached Ovipositor Outpost and found transport across the toxic wasteland. The Dirty Wanderer and his traveling companions Mono, Pucas, and Vira had many more adventures- enough to fill a book. Finally they had made their way to Schmegma City and the Videotape Palace at its center.

Rumplemuss stood in the palace’s foyer wondering what would become of him. He had never been a guest in a fine palace before; perhaps he had never been a guest anywhere. In the big, cold, outside world people did not invite dirty wanderers to their homes, and Rumplemuss had slept more in outhouses and iguana stables than in comfortable rooms.

“Don’t be nervous,” said a taxidermied humpty hump head mounted on the wall. “You don’t smell any worse than me.”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Rumplemuss.

Jodo, the bright young flackfizer he had met earlier, entered. She had already taken Mono, Pucas, and Vira to an apartment to clean up. Jodo walked up to him and said:

"Permit me, sir, to conduct you to your rooms."

Rumplemuss drew a long breath and took courage. Then he coughed and a glob of phlegm flew out of his throat and hit Jodo in the face.

"Oh man, I’m so sorry” he said, trying to wipe Jodo’s face with his dingy light blue handkerchief.

“Way to go, germfarm,” said the hump head through its phallic snout.

Jodo took out her own handkerchief, wiped off her face, then led Rumplemuss to a golden apartment for him to clean himself up, which he declined to do. An hour later he met Mono, Pucas, and Vira at the entrance to the enormous throne room. Mono led him toward the throne, as he was shy in such fine company, and presented him gracefully to the young Flatulenz Fairy upon the throne, saying:

"Tremorroid Titiana, this is my friend, Rumplemuss. He saved us from many dangers with his enchanted speculum."

"You are welcome to Bonertania," said the tremorroid, in a gracious tone. "But tell me, sir, where did you get this enchanted speculum?"

Rumplemuss grew red and looked downcast, as he answered in a low voice:

"I stole it, your majesty."

"Oh, Rumple!" cried Mono. "How dreadful! You told me a slurping sherpa gave you the enchanted speculum."

He shuffled first on one foot and then on the other, much embarrassed.

"I told you a falsehood, Mono," he said.

"Why did you steal it?" asked the tremorroid, gently.

"Because no one loved me, or cared for me," said Rumplemuss, "and I wanted to be loved a great deal. It was owned by a cockadoodoo sexer who was loved too much, so that the young men quarreled over her, which made her unhappy. After I had stolen the speculum from her, only one young man continued to love the sexer, and she married him and regained her happiness."

"Are you sorry you stole it?" asked the tremorroid.

"No, your highness; I'm glad," he answered frankly; "for it has pleased me to be loved, and if Mono and Pucas had not cared for me I could not have had so many adventures and accompanied them to this beautiful city, or met its kind-hearted and beautiful ruler. Now that I'm here, I hope to remain, and to become one of your majesty's most faithful subjects."

"But in Bonertania we are loved for ourselves alone, and for our kindness to one another, and for our good deeds," she said.

"I'll give up the enchanted speculum," said Rumplemuss, eagerly; "Mono shall have it."

"But every one loves Mono already," declared the tremorroid. Mono blushed.

"Then Pucas shall have it."

"Don't want it," said the boy, promptly.

“Vira?”

"All my people love Vira, too," announced Titiana the Flatulenz Fairy Tremorroid, laughing; "so we will enter the speculum into the weapon stash and save it for when a hate-filled enemy threatens Bonertania."

"That is a good idea," said Rumplemuss; "and I agree to it most willingly. I mean, the speculum’s battery won’t last forever but we’ll probably find a way to recharge it."

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