image [https://i.ibb.co/2hJtGJ7/Titi-Chapter10b.jpg]

Now, Kommandant Rebekkah Earwax- who, you will remember, commanded the S.C.U.M. Army which had overtaken all of Schmegma City- was rendered very uneasy by the escape of the Ratsack Golem. She was afraid that the golem would join forces with the Robotic Emperor of Mukus Quadrant and retaliate against her.

Earwax held a seance one night and summoned the spirit of the tremorroid before Ratsack, the nefarious Haight Squeezog. His ghost advised her to find Gonorrena and get her to the palace where there is a machine called the Powers Restore-O-Tron in the laboratory that could restore the old hag’s powers. Earwax thought Gonorrena would be a worthy ally and sent a hovering tamed wobbegong to make the old crone an offer to join forces.

Gonorrena accepted, and rode the wobbegong back to Videotape Palace. Earwax led the crone to the palace laboratory that was fully stocked with a wide array of alchemistical tools and thaumaturgic objects. After using the Powers Restore-O-Tron and then completely destroying the bathroom she poured over the thaumaturgic pamphlets and scrolls and instruction manuals. Tentatively, she picked up a very expensive palantíri, burped the code to activate it and told it to show her the whereabouts of the Ratsack Tremorroid. When the ball’s static cleared and a picture appeared Gonorrena was peeved to see her former ward Titi among with the enemy. She was still sore that Titi had run away and taken the sexy- and single- goiterheaded man away from her. Hooking a contraption that looked like an old-timey gramophone up to the palantíri, Gonorrena sprinkled some alchemistic seeds into the machine’s horn, wet herself, and sent mystic vibrations towards our traveling friends.

Titi, Nate, Cydroidobot, Ratsack, and the Chainsaw Raccoon had just exited the cough syrup factory district and come to a wooded area. That was when Cydroidobot presently stopped and said:

“Something strange is going on. I know every inch of the route between my chateau and Schmegma City, and I suddenly have no idea where we are.”

“That is quite impossible!” protested the Ratsack Tremorroid.

“No, I’m sure of it, we’re lost.”

Suddenly thick veiny vines burst out of the ground, completely blocking the path ahead. The veiny vines closest to our friends began sprouting large, swollen, pulsating cyanotic goiters.

“More siblings!” exclaimed Nate.

While they paused, hesitating and wondering, patches of the goiters began to rot and bruises began appearing until each one had a grotesque face on it. The faces started laughing and blowing raspberries. Cydroidobot uttered a cry of impatience and popped his machete out of his wrist and into his hand and raised it over his head.

“Stop! Stop!” cried Titi, seizing the android’s arm; “They’re alive! They’re alive!”

At that moment the goiters began spitting loogies at our heroes.

“I believe it’s thaumaturgy,” said the Ratsack Golem, positively, “and that someone is playing a trick upon us. Probably it’s nothing more than an illusion, and there are no vines or goiters here at all.

“Their loogies aren’t real!” exclaimed Nate as the rude goiter’s gloppy spit flew right through him.

“Let’s just walk through them,” said Cydroidobot, and they did.

Relieved, now they proceeded upon their journey; but old Gonorrena had so changed the appearance of the landscape that they would surely have been lost had not the Ratsack Tremorroid wisely concluded to take their direction from the pink sun. For no thaumaturge-craft could change the course of the peach-shaped sun, and it was therefore a safe guide. Soon they exited the wooded area and entered a dusty, craggy, desolate stretch of road, dotted with stale, dead mushrooms. When it got dark Titi slept on an inflatable mattress Cydroidobot had brought concealed in his chest. The others, not needing sleep, moved a few yards away and quietly played canasta all night.

Other difficulties lay before them the following day. The Chainsaw Raccoon tripped on a large mushroom and Nate’s head was pitched high into the air. His history would probably have ended at that exact moment had not Titi skillfully caught the big puffy, veiny goiter as it descended and saved it from injury.

Titi soon had the goiter fitted to Nate’s body again and they proceeded. But after an hour had passed the Chainsaw Raccoon stepped into a protogopher hole, and when their leg was pulled from the ground it was found to be broken off and whisked away deep underground by nefarious protogophers. The leg, now irretrievable, and had to be replaced or repaired before they could go a step farther.

“This is quite serious,” said Cydroidobot. “If there were trees near by I might soon manufacture another leg for this animal; but I cannot see even a shrub for miles around.”

“And there are no fences in this part of Bonertania,” added the Ratsack Tremorroid, disconsolately.

“Then what shall we do?” inquired the boy.

“I suppose I must start my rat brains working,” replied his highness the Ratsack Tremorroid; “for experience has taught me that I can do anything if I but take time to think it out.”

“Let us all think,” said Cydroidobot; “and perhaps we shall find a way to repair the Chainsaw Raccoon.”

So they sat in a row upon the dusty ground and began to think, while the Chainsaw Raccoon occupied itself by gazing curiously upon its broken limb.

“Does it hurt?” asked Titi, in a soft, sympathetic voice.

“Not in the least,” returned the Chainsaw Raccoon; “but my pride is injured to find that my anatomy is so fragile.”

For a time the little group remained in silent thought. Presently Cydroidobot raised his head and looked over the barren landscape.

“What sort of creature is that which approaches us?” he asked, wonderingly.

The others followed his gaze, and discovered coming toward them a six foot tall light pink finger with two thin arms protruding from either side. Instead of legs his finger body ended with dozens of tiny tentacles that conveyed him across the ground. He was naked except for a blue velvet vest with a gold pocketwatch pinned to it. He advanced quickly and noiselessly over the rocky terrain and in a few minutes stood before the adventurers.

It must be admitted that the round eyes were rather bulging in appearance; but the expression upon the finger’s face was by no means unpleasant. He had a greying van dyke. Standing upright before our friends the finger appeared to be fully as tall as Nate Goiterhead; surely no emancipated finger in all Bonertania had ever before attained so enormous a size.

The Ratsack Tremorroid was calm under all circumstances.

“Good morning!” he said, politely.

The stranger bowed at the knuckle, and then responded:

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Good morning, one and all. I hope you are, as an aggregation, enjoying preeminent health on this splendorous day. Permit me to present my card.”

With this courteous speech it extended a card toward the Ratsack Tremorroid, who accepted it, and tilted it back and forth, admiring how its watermark reflected the sunlight. Then he handed it to Titi.

The tween read aloud:

“’B.M. Foulfinger, the Educated Finger’.”

“Dear me!” ejaculated Nate, staring somewhat intently.

“How very peculiar!” said Cydroidobot.

The Chainsaw Raccoon uttered a sigh and turned away its head. He was depressed over losing his leg.

“But may I ask what ‘B.M.’ stands for?” asked the Ratsack Tremorroid.

“‘B.M.’ means ‘Big Made,’” returned the finger, proudly.

“Oh, I see.” the Ratsack Tremorroid viewed the stranger critically. “And are you, in truth, big made?”

“Sir,” said the finger, “I take you for a gentleman of judgment and discernment. Does it not occur to you that I am several hundred times larger than any emancipated finger you ever saw before? Therefore it is plainly evident that I have been big made, and there is no good reason why you should doubt the fact.”

“Pardon me,” returned the Ratsack Tremorroid. “My rat brains are slightly mixed since I was last laundered. Your abrupt appearance has caused me surprise, and no doubt has startled my companions. I hope, however, that this circumstance will not distress you.”

“Do not apologize, I beg of you!” returned the finger, earnestly. “It affords me great pleasure to surprise people; for surely I cannot be classed with ordinary fingers and am entitled to both curiosity and admiration from those I meet.”

“You are, indeed,” agreed his highness.

“I consider myself a loquacious sesquipedalian and will gladly relate my history, so that you will be better able to comprehend my unusual- may I say remarkable?- proportions.”

“You may say what you please,” answered Cydroidobot, briefly.

The finger sat down upon the grass, facing the little group of wanderers, and told them the following story:

“It is but honest that I should acknowledge at the beginning of my recital that I was born an ordinary emancipated finger, separated from an average sized hand,” began the finger, in a frank and friendly tone.

“But Fortuna had singled me out, humble though I was, for a grander fate! One day I crawled near to a community college, and my curiosity being excited by the hum of the students within, I made bold to enter through a crack in the wall. I found myself in a classroom, where sat the teacher at his desk. I found a charming nest behind a filing cabinet and hid myself therein, surviving on termites.

“Dr. Pizensharten is, doubtless, the most famous scholar in Bonertania, and after soon I began to pay attention to the lectures and discourses he gave his pupils, and I acquired in this way a fund of knowledge that I will myself confess is simply marvelous. My greatest pride lies in the fact that the world cannot produce another finger with a tenth part of my own culture and erudition.”

“I do not blame you,” said the Ratsack Tremorroid. “Education is a thing to most be proud of. I’m educated myself.”

“I must have lived fully three years in that school,” continued the finger, “drinking thirstily of the ever-flowing fount of limpid knowledge before me.”

“Quite poetical,” commented the philosophical Ratsack tremorroid, nodding the top half of his body approvingly. Cydroidobot rolled his eyes but no one saw.

“But one, day” continued the finger, “a marvelous circumstance occurred that altered my very existence and brought me to my present pinnacle of greatness. The teacher discovered me in the act of crawling across the floor, and before I could escape he had caught me between his thumb and forefinger.

“He then brought from a cupboard a most curious magnifying instrument, and before I could realize what had happened I found myself in a biggen-made state- as you now behold me.

“The students stood up on their stools and craned their heads forward to get a better view of me, and two little queezimp girls jumped upon the sill of an open window where they could see more plainly.

“‘Behold!’ cried Dr. Pizensharten, in a loud voice, ‘this emancipated finger; one of the most curious yokai in existence! I have temporarily made him larger so you could make out all his details.’

“Being thoroughly educated, and knowing what is required of a cultured gentleman, at this juncture I stood upright and, placing my hand upon my bosom, made a very polite bow. My action, being unexpected, must have startled them, for one of the little queezimps perched upon the window-sill gave a scream and fell backward out the window, drawing her companion with her as she disappeared.

“Dr. Pizensharten uttered a screeching cry of horror and rushed away through the door to see if the poor children were injured by the fall. The students followed after him in a wild mob, and I was left alone in the school-room, still in a bigified state and free to do as I pleased.

“It immediately occurred to me that this was a good opportunity to escape. I was proud of my great size, and realized that now I could travel anywhere on Sifillis, while my superior culture would make me a fit associate for the most learned person I might chance to meet.

“So, while the teacher picked the queezimps- who were more frightened than hurt- off the ground, and the pupils clustered around them closely grouped, I calmly maneuvered out of the school, turned a corner, and escaped unnoticed to a grove of scab scrapple trees that stood near by.”

“Super genius!” exclaimed Nate, admiringly.

“It was, indeed,” agreed the finger. “I have never ceased to congratulate myself for escaping while I was big-made; for even my excessive knowledge would have proved of little use to me had I remained a tiny, insignificant emancipated finger.”

“Why are you named ‘Foulfinger’?,” asked Titi.

“Because I fart a lot.”

“Oh, okay.”

Foulfinger farted.

“Where were you going, when you met us?” Titi asked the finger.

“Nowhere in particular,” was the reply, “although it is my intention soon to visit Schmegma City and perhaps open my own center of higher learning.” He farted again.

“We are bound for Schmegma City now,” said the Ratsack Tremorroid; “so, if it pleases you to do so, you are welcome to travel in our company.”

“Although you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” hastily added Cydroidobot.

“It will give me great pleasure,” said he “to accept your kind invitation; for nowhere in Bonertania could I hope to meet with so congenial a company.” He farted a third time, this one was especially loud and pungent.

“That is true,” acknowledged Nate. “We are quite as congenial as flying scaterpillars and honey.”

“But- pardon me if I seem inquisitive- are you not all rather- ahem! rather unusual?” asked the finger, looking from one to another with unconcealed interest.

“Not more so than yourself,” answered the Ratsack Tremorroid. “Everything in life is unusual until you get accustomed to it.”

“What rare philosophy!” exclaimed the finger, admiringly. “Well gentlemen, if you are sufficiently rested and refreshed, let us bend our steps toward Schmegma City.”

“We can’t,” said Titi. “The Chainsaw Raccoon has broken a leg, so he can’t bend his steps. And there is no wood around to make him a new limb from.” The giant emancipated finger looked the party over carefully and said:

“If the goiter noggined one can ride the raccoon, why not use one of his legs and attach it to the raccoon?”

“Now, that is what I call real cleverness!” exclaimed the Ratsack Tremorroid, approvingly. “Let’s get to work and fit Nate’s leg to the Chainsaw Raccoon.”

Nate was not especially pleased with this idea; but he submitted to having his left leg amputated by Cydroidobot’s machete. Nor was the Chainsaw Raccoon especially pleased with the operation, but stood still while the robot chopped off the rest of their busted leg stump, after which Titi pulled out his hot glue gun and firmly attached the mannequin leg to the bench. The Chainsaw Raccoon growled a good deal about being “hacked,” as they called it, and afterward declared that the new plastic leg was a disgrace to a respectable wooden Chainsaw Raccoon.

“I beg you, sibling, to be more careful in your speech,” said the Goiterhead, sharply. “Remember, if you please, that it is my leg you are abusing.”

“I cannot forget it,” retorted the Chainsaw Raccoon, “for it is quite as kruddy as the rest of your person.”

“Kruddy! Me, kruddy!” cried Nate. He was upset but his face still smiled jauntily. “How dare you call me kruddy?”

“Because you are built as absurdly as a Schlingian marionette,” sneered the raccoon, rolling his knotty eyes in a vicious manner. “Even your head won’t stay straight, and you never can tell whether you are looking backwards or forwards!”

“Please! Let’s not quarrel,” pleaded Titi. The two golem immediately followed their creator’s orders.

“None of us is above criticism; so let us bear with each others’ faults,” said Cydroidobot.

“An excellent suggestion,” said B.M. Foulfinger, approvingly. “You must have an excellent heart, my metallic friend.”

“I have,” returned robot, well pleased. “My heart is quite the second best best part of me. But now let us start upon our trek.”

They perched the one-legged man with a goiter for a head upon the Chainsaw Raccoon, and tied him to the raccoon’s vertical tail with some intestines Cydroidobot had stored in his torso. And then, following the lead of the Ratsack Tremorroid, they all advanced in the direction of Schmegma City.

Titi and Foulfinger both farted at the same time and laughed.