Skipper Eden’s Big Break
by
Blaine Arcade
Cheerleaders are always in the wrong place. Somebody keeps putting them on the field, during the game, when they really belong in the preamble, in the lockers and dressing rooms, motivating the people who aren’t quite sure if they can get themselves out there and perform their best. Luckily for Skipper Eden, he had five incredible cheerleaders with him before he even entered Club Nosering:
screamingecho'steam [https://blainearcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screamingechosteam.png?w=656]
In his particular future, on his particular planet, along with the other habitable worlds and realms, it helps in most situations to have cillimorph friends. Skipper was a cillikeeper in addition to an announcer (he’s getting to the announcer part), so had plenty such friends. His cheerleaders were his closest. And they were, in random order, just the way cillimorphs like it, a Tictuttle, a Mudaub, an Egvelope, a Rimeroot, and a Puckerluck.
Cillimorphs are (I’m assuming you’re new) kind of like animals, except we had to make them silly so they could withstand the long journeys from one planet to another. Yeah, they got smarter, but they don’t talk, and they make sure to act plenty dumb so they don’t wind up like us. Right now Skipper’s team was hissing, clicking, blubbing, and gurbling, but he knew them well enough to know it was of a cheering variety.
A little push was helpful, as he did not like the look of Club Nosering. Big. Cubical. Brown. That probably meant a certain building company had moved into town.
BrassTacksBuildingCompany [https://blainearcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/brasstacksbuildingcompany.png?w=656]
Or maybe not. Could’ve been coincidence, since none of his morphs seemed unsettled. Mudaub buzzed up and plopped wetly onto his head. Either he got marching inside or the segmented cillimorph was going to drip mud all over his announcer outfit.
He didn’t custom order a sequined green vest, a nice match with his painted purple-and-green clownface, just for that to happen. The building matched his deep breath when its automatic doors flew open, practically sucking him inside and blasting him in the face with all the best parts of being a cillikeeper.
Everywhere you might have a cillimorph rasslin’ match you needed the highest ceilings you could muster so they had room to soar, swoop, drip, fall, leap, and tumble. Whenever they weren’t burrowing. Or bouncing. Or napping at high speed. Best to cover all the bases. On the back wall there was a massive logo being painted with rollers. It looked like Club Nosering’s symbol was going to be two smoky eyes overlooking two rasslin’ rings.
His cillimorph Puckerluck came in two pieces, a frumpy fishy thing and a much sexier fishy thing, serpentine tan and green, which was really just a projection of the flat slimy body’s wiles. The projection playfully kissed him on the cheek and then took off into the club, flying around at high speed, and when it went low and bent Skipper saw that it circled the two rasslin’ rings currently making their way into the logo.
No way regular human wrestling was still on the air; it was nothing compared to the cillimorph variety. For one thing a human ring wasn’t even a ring, nothing but a dull square of canvas and a fence of rigid ropes. A rasslin’ ring on the other hand could be any environment in miniature, sunken in like a 1970’s conversation pit. Club Nosering had one forested, with a rocky infinity river running down the middle, and one with mounds of porous black stone. For small tunnelers, Skipper guessed. Too tight for his Tictuttle, but Mudaub could handle that labyrinth well.
“I know, I know, we’re not here to rassle,” he said when the icy column of his Rimeroot nudged his back. The chill put him in the right frame of mind again, let him see who else populated the club. Other cillikeepers and their morphs where scattered but plentiful, testing out the freshly installed landscapes, assisting with the painting, and interfering with the assisting of the painting.
A clunky Geovum rolled back and forth in its mineralized shell, packing the dirt of the forested ring. Two Stargats chased each other through the air, casting bluish stellar light on everyone else, an excellent lighting test for the woman watching from the rigging, who made notes on a clipboard while the Napcoat hanging out of her pocket babbled squeakily. She nodded along to its gibberish.
screamill1 [https://blainearcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screamill1.png?w=656]
Maybe Club Nosering wouldn’t be so bad after all, if it was this alive before they even officially opened the doors. His Puckerluck’s projection slipped into a seam, and he guessed that was where the retractable dance floors would emerge from when covering the arenas. That was to be the club’s shtick: in between nights of pulse-pounding electronic music they’d open the floors and have rasslin’ tournaments and exhibition matches.
Skipper was going to be a part of it, as soon as he identified which of the people hanging around actually worked for the club and could get him his shiny new position. It didn’t even have to be shiny, he brought that with him on the vest. His best analytical eye directed him to another woman with a clipboard, but her was bigger, so she was probably more important.
“You guys go and play with the others,” he instructed his morphs, “I got this.” By the time his Egvelope had slipped under his Tictuttle’s wing casing and they’d both scuttled away toward the unattended paint buckets, Skipper planted himself in that exact place: the awkward one where he was close enough that the woman had to look up and ask if she could help. Three, two, one…
“Umm, can I help you with something?”
“Yes!” he declared, attempting to show off the booming yet velvety quality to his voice. It startled her, so perhaps a little more velvet moving forward. “Actually we can help each other, assuming you’re on staff here.”
“I manage the crew,” she confirmed. Her orange hardhat blocked her upper peripheral vision, but she still glanced toward the ceiling. “Don’t get on me about the walls. I didn’t build the place. Strictly crew.”
“I’m here for the announcer position.”
“We didn’t announce an announcer position.”
“As your announcer, I can announce the announcer position for you, then it will be filled already!”
“I mean it’s supposed to be night by night,” she explained. “Guest hosts and stuff.”
“Let me ask you this. Is it, technically, within your power to hire me as the debut and then regular announcer?”
“Yeah.”
“Perfect. I’ll rassle you for it.” She scoffed, but he’d already learned to spot her little glances from her skepticism regarding the rickety shell in which they stood. Another one had flicked toward his Rimeroot, sliding along idly behind with its icy vapors: an eight foot tall menace to a warm welcome.
“What would be in it for me if I win?” she asked, looking at the clipboard to appear busy. Mr. Eden suppressed his smirk. She wasn’t even denying she was a cillikeeper.
“I’ll announce on opening night, free of charge.”
“That just sounds like you winning a different way.”
“And I’ll sweep the whole building for free, make sure none of these blocks are stuffed with morphs.” She looked at the walls again. This was the crucial moment. She probably wasn’t legally allowed to look inside the large crates or the flat hexagonal cells that made up any building produced under a Brass Tacks contract. Having someone check, someone not officially hired yet, might settle her nerves, and give her a great scapegoat if it turned out the place was packed full of morphs as insulation.
“Alright Mr. Announcer, you got yourself a deal,” the staff manager said with a cluck of her tongue, holding out her hand for him to shake. The deal was sealed in nervous sweat.
“Please, call me Big Eden. That’s how I’ll be introducing myself to your crowds.”
“You’ll have to get through me first,” the manager chuckled, breaking out a tiny tub of white face paint. Her clipboard stayed safely tucked under one arm while she slathered one cheek. Watching her speed, Skipper brought out his own green and applied it, putting on the meaner variant of his clownface so his morphs would know it was time to rumble. She was quick. usually the faster you put your face on the more practiced you were.
Clownfaces summoned the cillimorphs you’d befriended, making it clear you want their silly company, and all it took was a few thoughts for the specific ones you wanted to show up out of the woodwork or around a corner, even if you’d last seen them on another planet.
The manager held up three white splotchy fingers, another proposal, to which Skipper nodded. It would be three on three. The maximum allowed in most organization was five versus five, as anything more than that made it difficult for the keeper to coach all their morphs at once. Three meant Eden’s morphs could get a decent amount of direction, so he was free to pick the ones that needed it most.
His opponent’s team showed up out of a rock hole, from right behind her, and from right behind Skipper’s Rimeroot. Definitely a trio belonging to a manager, he thought as he saw two big strong cillimorphs flanking a more calculating one that probably acted as her assistant when the paperwork wasn’t too boring. The two bodyguards were both Grendelbaks nearly as tall as his Rimeroot: one muscular arm for moving freight around and one skeletal one for backscratching and more southern strategies. Their warty green hides stood in stark contrast to the waxy plumage of her Burlescarole, all legs, lips, and sassy attitude squeezed into the body of a giant purple carrot.
screamill2 [https://blainearcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screamill2.png?w=656]
By issuing the challenge, Skipper had given up the right to select which of the two arenas they used. His opponent selected the forested one though, a lucky break, as his Puckerluck would be much more effective with some water to hide in. As they descended into the arena they caught the eyes of everyone present, workers and practicing keepers alike, all of whom suddenly decided they were on their lunch break.
Nerves weren’t Skipper’s problem. People found him abrasive, loud, but he thought that was fine, since it was all he wanted to do for living: shout about how much he loved cillimorphs. Ever since grade school, when his Lixu, long before it had matured into his Puckerluck, repeated his pronouncements on the playground in electric bubbles he knew he wanted his name in lights and his words on stage. Problem is, sometimes announcer energy gets in the way of attaining the announcer’s desk.
screamill3 [https://blainearcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screamill3.png?w=656]
Better to prove it with rasslin’ than with simpering on and off his resume, and for that task he called up his trio: Puckerluck, Rimeroot, and Mudaub. A referee volunteered when all six cillimorphs were down in the ring and rarin’ to go.
“Do you want a bell!?” the volunteer shouted to the audience pooling at the edges. Skipper held his tongue; he could say it better. He could make the bell sound like paradise.
“Give us the bell!” they roared back as one.
“Here comes the bell!” He used the butt of a paint roller to smack the silver dome hanging out beside the arenas, yet to be properly installed. Ding Ding!
screamill6 [https://blainearcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screamill6.png?w=656]
And the match was on. Plenty of overlap between announcing and coaching had helped Skipper develop his skills, but he didn’t have to utter a word at first; his cillimorphs knew the opening pattern they’d practiced many times.
Rimeroot blew its top, spraying fog everywhere, which Puckerluck could use as cover to leap into the water. It wasn’t deep, but the fishy cillimorph’s body was flat enough to disappear regardless, leaving it free to focus on channeling its rasslin’ moves through its ethereal flying projection. Meanwhile Mudaub readied its dangling stinger, trying to pick out which of the Grendelbaks looked worse at swatting.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“Burlescarole, helicopter kick!” the manager ordered, pointing out targets with the pen unsheathed from her clipboard. Her morph was quick on the uptake, leaping into the air and spinning its long legs at high speed, successfully suppressing Rimeroot’s creeping fog bank. Both Grendelbaks trudged further into the battlefield, grunting almost as loud as the bell through their hog noses.
“Let’s go guys!” Skipper declared, happy to act as their cheerleader this time. “Hollow arrow maneuver!” Puckerluck’s projection straightened out and shot through the air, right toward the Burlescarole before it could regain the loss of composure from its kick. It tried to dance out of the way, obscure its main body by waving its floral skirt as a matador’s cape. The eel-like projection passed straight through, able to use its main body’s senses rather than the displayed eyes.
The move wouldn’t do much damage given its lack of physicality, or so the staff manager thought, but hiding within its body was the much smaller Mudaub, who smacked wetly onto the Burlescarole and delivered a powerful sting that left it yapping and can-canning wildly around the edges of the stream.
“Lefty, go help B,” his opponent instructed, utilizing nicknames to differentiate between her Grendelbaks and save a little time. One of the burlier morphs broke away and retreated while the other powered forward, right into Rimeroot.
Tackled by something between a linebacker and an overfed ogre, the stiff icy column of Eden’s Rimeroot could’ve quickly been toppled, if not for some quick words that went like-
“Blast off!” Now the fog geyser came from underneath, rocketing Rimeroot vertically out of the Grendelbak’s grip. It stumbled forward, foolishly tried to brace itself with its flimsy skeletal arm. “Columnal stomp!” His grower morph came back down, buried its base in the lower back of the morph probably called ‘Righty.” That knocked all its breath out, so much that it misjudged how much energy it had left. As it rolled over its bony arm waved the white flag prematurely. A ref had to call a white flag, whether or not the morph regretted it a few seconds later.
“Grendelbak taps out!” the temporary official judged, in favor of the hopefully-permanent soon-to-be official. The big gray-green lug threw down its flag and sulked onto the sidelines. Where cillimorphs got all these little white flags was just one of their mysteries. Sometimes it was toilet paper or printer paper stolen from nearby, but if neither of those things was available they still managed to break out a perfect little white flag on a black wooden pole as if it had just rolled off an assembly line.
“Converge,” Skipper told his team now that he had the manager outnumbered. Rimeroot glided toward the Burlescarole as Puckerluck’s body flopped out of the water toward their remaining foes. She hadn’t lost her cool yet though.
“B, pin down!” Her morph shot back to its feet so powerfully it became a jump. Always remember how high they can jump, Eden silently scolded himself, especially when they’re mostly leg. The sudden height caught Mudaub off-guard, and the muddy lil’ morph was pinned to the ground like a wasp in a display case. It didn’t wave the flag yet, so the Burlescarole kept it pinned and fought with its other leg almost like it was fencing.
“Now get that flatfish!” the manager practically snarled at Lefty. Puckerluck panicked and flapped backward, its plan of getting in a cheap slap foiled. Out of nowhere Lefty leapt a great distance, maybe having picked up some extra long-jump length after losing so many friendly contests to B.
“Make it slip!” Skipper shouted, but he had a feeling the looming shadow would of a six hundred pound Grendelbak would prevent his Puckerluck from hearing. Just before its clawed foot could connect, the fishy morph spat up a white flag, gripped it in its ridiculous lips, and waved it back and forth, sparing itself a squishing.
“Puckerluck taps out!” the ref called, to another roar from the audience. Two versus two. But not really, Skipper told himself. His team knew the deal, and when it came down to the wire, where it was now, they were way more than his cheerleaders. They were his best friends. His dream of being a rasslin’ announcer was on the line, which was the same thing as the wire, which it was all down to!
“Mudaub, sewing sting!” The trapped morph narrowed its compound eyes, which glittered amethyst in the heat of exertion. With a determined buzz it raised its stinger and jabbed the Burlescarole’s five times in rapid succession. The limb was instantly paralyzed, and the carrotish morph had nothing to do but moan as it teetered and fell over. Well, there was one more thing it could do: wave the white flag.
“Burlescarole taps out!”
“Now let’s converge!” Skipper coached once more. Lefty was beset on both sides by a freed Mudaub and a full steam Rimeroot. Its muscular arm halted the column, while its skeletal one tried to swat Mudaub away. The right morph could win the right two on one, but the manager didn’t have an entire dream at stake, somehow burning not in Eden’s chest, but in his cillimorphs. Both found a second wind to fan that flame, and struck. Rimeroot leaned back and then forward, crushing Lefty’s toes. While it howled in shock Mudaub spiraled in, spraying a funnel of mud in its wake, and stung the Grendelbak’s exposed tongue.
Their foe fell backward, swollen tongue lolling, white flag doing the same.
“Grendelbak number two taps out! Purple clownface guy wins!” The applause broke against Skipper, and he drank it in. Soon he’d hear it every night, vocal cords cracking like whips, electric anticipation hanging off every rasslin’ move, encapsulated and enhanced in every way by his pronouncements. Club Nosering was going to be his. He knew enough not to say that out loud, not when some of the audience was still in the middle of one of the workdays that was putting it together.
“Great job gu- oh no!” Before he could finish his praise he was swamped by all five of his morphs in a big silly pile. Escape could’ve taken hours, and a few muscles pulled in horseplay, but one of his hands was free from the get-go. The staff manager took it and pulled him out. “Oh, thank you. Geez, you’re actually really strong.”
“I know,” she chuckled. “That’s why I’m trying to teach these knuckleheads a few things.” She cocked her head back at her fatigued and scuffed team of morphs, who were collapsed together in a much less jovial pile. They smiled and waved weakly. Leave it to cillimorphs to always love being acknowledged, context be damned and flushed out to the ocean. “Looks like you’ve got the job, Big Eden. We’ll rassle again later to see how much I’ve got to pay you. Make sure you show up tomorrow night by six thirty.”
“What happens tomorrow?” he asked with a bigger smile than the one worn by the Grendelbaks.
“The Nosering Tri-Weekly Invitationaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!” he answered himself just thirty hours later. It was a sea of clownfaces, his own included, morphs squeezed between people, everyone dancing and jumping, leaving only room for competition in the sunken arenas that Skipper only just realized looked like nostrils.
Of course he had his own clownface on, and it wasn’t just his team of five there to cheer him on this time. All the cillimorphs he had had ever befriended were waiting in the wings; it was going to be a heck of a party later. First he had to shout his way through this heck of a party. With a deep breath full of the mingling smells of popcorn, shucked peanuts, and scented pancake make-up, he put his whole self back to the grindstone.
“We want to thank you folks for coming out tonight for this new promotion, all of you, except you Mr. Brass Tack!” He pointed out one face at the edge of the crowd, sticking up like a bent nail, mostly because the man wore an absurdly tall hat shaped like a bent nail, a hideous rusty brown too. Everyone booed, and he fielded several thrown snacks.
That loser was probably there to make sure his company’s building didn’t fall down on its opening night. Nobody below the C-suite cared for any brass tacks, so Skipper figured he could get away with calling him out. Though if anyone was going to bring the house down tonight, it was none other than Big Eden.
“Let’s get ready to rasslllllllllllllllllllllle!” Every eye and spotlight centered on the rocky arena for the first match of the evening. An aged cillikeeper with a sky blue clown nose was going head to head with a young novice, flames painted on her smiling lips. “First up in our festivities is the seasoned Mr. Fifenir versuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus newcomer Bitsy Acorn! Let’s hear it for our cillikeepers folks!”
They heard it alright.
“It’s a two versus two on our stone cold battlefield. Let’s get it heated up! And here come the morphs. We’re going digital, who says old-timers can’t figure out computers? It’s Cleeq and Geocleeq from Mr. Fifenir. Opposing these accursed cursors picking our nosering, we’ve got Crumbcrown and Portcarlis on little Ms. Acorn’s team.”
Portcarlis was a pretty heavy duty morph for such a young keeper. It was basically a waddling garage, and it took a long time for a metallic and surly Carmpact to mature into one, so the girl might have inherited its friendship from an older relative. Her measly little Crumbcrown was much better suited to a beginner; you could toss a French fry on a city street and befriend one of those right out of the gutter.
screamill4 [https://blainearcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screamill4.png?w=656]
That was no slight against their rasslin’ spirit however, and one of the things that made Skipper such a good announcer was that he could believe in every morph from underdog to overachiever. He meant what he said and he screamed what he meant.
“Do you want a bell!?”
“Give us the bell!”
“Heeeeeeeere comes the beeeeeeeeell!”
screamill7 [https://blainearcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screamill7.png?w=656]
It was on, and so was Skipper’s mic, and so was Skipper. He caught and reported every move, no matter how bad the angle. “And the Cleeqs are going for a pincer maneuver pinch outside of Portcarlis’s reach. They would’ve had it too, if not for Crumbcrown’s deft spitballing.”
When the juvenile cyberspace cillimorph was bogged down in a cocoon of hocked loogies, the announcer stole a glance at the schedule on his desk, to see what other match-ups were slated for that evening. It couldn’t hurt to make up some fancy titles before he’d even seen the contestants.
An unfamiliar yellow corner stuck out from under the papers. Worried, he’d overlooked something, he grabbed and pulled, only to find it wasn’t paperwork at all, but his Egvelope playing a practical joke. Hiss-giggling at its success, it flashed him something like a thumbs-up with the prong of its forked tongue that also acted as its legs.
“You scamp,” he play-scolded it with a hand over his mic, “get out of here.” A light spinning toss sent it flying and convinced the audience to throw up their hats, clown noses, and handfuls of bottom-of-the-bag popcorn kernels too hard to chew. To him every item was further encouragement. This was it, the dream.
The only problem was that housing a dream inside the work of the Brass Tacks Building Company could cause it to ferment into a nightmare. Skipper Eden’s booming yet smooth voice proved itself a disastrously excellent pickling liquid. Matches with big cubes like Portcarlis and dim blobs like Crumbcrown were rarely the most exciting, so it must have been the announcer’s performance that put it in that small percentage.
“Cleeq taps out!” Another rolling roar from the crowd. “But Geocleeq’s using the tunnels, could be a thorn in the paw coming right up!” Their volume swelled. It was impossible to ignore how much fun everyone was having, and those who found it impossible were stashed away in some of the most load-bearing crate-bricks in the club’s supports.
No cillimorph could be blamed for seeking a good time, it was in their nature, but when Skipper was first to spot a distant seam on the wall forced open by its contents he was flooded with fear. The icy tusk suddenly probing at the air probably belonged to a Pinberg. Identifying it did nothing to solve the problem of its emergence.
screamill5 [https://blainearcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screamill5.png?w=656]
After it flopped out like a breakfast sausage, two dozen more seams split and revealed exotic colors and appendages. Skipper could name ten more species by the time the Pinberg hit the floor. Just as quickly, he knew that he’d done it. If he hadn’t riled everyone up it wouldn’t have lured out those trapped morphs. It wouldn’t have brought the house down.
“Everyone calmly head for the exits!” Eden shouted, undercutting his own instructions. What else was there to do? Coach, he thought. If he couldn’t announce his way out of it, ash his friends for help. They never needed the mic to hear him. “To me guys!”
Other cillikeepers in the crowd tried to do as he did, get their teams to understand how high the stakes just became. None of them did as good a job of it as the first piece of the ceiling that broke free and fell into their panicked flight. The rest of the building followed in phases too quick and too slow. Too fast to react. Too slow to bear watching.
“There!” Skipper screamed, pointing to where a dropping crate was about to flatten a child. His Rimeroot shot by him, took the blow of the open and emptied object, wore it like a hat. Once again, those whose awareness was just one step behind Eden’s raised sideline desk, copied him. Cillimorphs flew and leapt into the air, catching half of what fell from the ceiling.
“Quick, see if anyone’s in there,” the announcer instructed his Egvelope, which had slipped in under his arm like an aggressive jury summons. With an aimed toss he sent it into a heap of fallen debris where it could slip into the tightest spaces and search them for trapped spectators. His Puckerluck’s projection could pass through solid objects and do the same thing while its fleshy body threw itself over Skipper’s head as a tarp to ward off any more falling debris.
Someone needed help, he spotted them standing dumbly still, mouth agape. It was none other than the brass tack, who must have glued his hat to his head, since it didn’t fall off when he stared up at his and his employer’s horrific failure. Eden would’ve helped, knowing it was the right thing to do since a brass tack never would’ve done it, but there wasn’t time. What fell on him seemed to do so faster than the rest, even though gravity purportedly dropped all things at the same speed. Maybe there was still a morph in there. They had the power to avoid making sense, and to make sense of some things.
The container hit the nail on the head, flattening his hat and then the rest of him. Better to turn his attention back to those who could be saved. Once the nostril arenas were full of the roof, everyone went to work digging them back out in search of the injured. Some burly morphs made quick work of it, including the two Grendelbaks belonging to the scuffed but unharmed manager, whose assistants only had to be told three times to stop trying to lift heavy things with their wimpy arms.
Time washed out for Skipper Eden as he and his morphs drifted between helpful tasks, clearing areas, moving survivors, calming nerves. A flock of ambulances arrived, their spinning blue lights all too visible through the freshly if unevenly installed windows. The next thing the announcer remembered hearing was that everyone’s hard work paid off. There were no casualties aside from the tack man. That was a win, but he didn’t really feel like announcing it.
People started to drift away, draped in emergency blankets, pouring water bottles over their faces to get rid of dust, losing their clownfaces in streaking tears at the same time. As a result, the morphs thinned out too, because the party was dying.
The manager found him sitting on his Tictuttle’s wing case, dissociating to its clockwork click-tock click-tock. When they locked eyes her face went from sad to resigned. Her own clownface was all but gone.
“Good work out there tonight,” she said.
“I guess this means I’m fired?”
“Absolutely not.” His head rose out of his hands and his Tictuttle was silenced. like a stopped heart.
“What do you mean? I destroyed the club!”
“No, the BTBC destroyed the club, just like they do seventy-five percent of the time. This is just going to get written off in a boardroom somewhere. We’re the ones who have to remember it and keep going. And right now, as far as the adoring public is concerned, you’re all that’s left of Club Nosering! You’re the centerpiece now! If we want to build it back up we need our announcer as foundation.”
“Do you mean it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, volume rising exponentially, “do we mean it!?” What was left of the audience clustered around and cheered for him. A few were certain they were alive because he’d sent his morphs in the right direction, or told them to get a move on. It was the applause that really convinced Skipper.
It hardly mattered if it came from the hands of people or the slapping fins and wings of his cillimorphs.
The End