SHIP'S LOG:

Araceli

Jimmy Three-hands 12/2/2020 10:45pm

"That's TumbleBEETLE!" Mr. Tumblebug roared, knocking down a few more trees.

Mr. Tumblebug is mighty particular about his classification.

"Yes sir, yes sir, right you are. My apologies," I told Mr. Tumblebug. "Now what brings you to these parts, sir?"

Mr. Tumblebug can't see too well, but he smells great. If you know what I mean. He got up on his spindly hind legs and waved those big old antlers of his around in the air a bit and said "I smell a great treasure."

Then he came crashing down and pushed his big black face right in front of my face, and looked at me with his big black eyes.

"Do you stand between me and my treasure?" Mr. Tumblebug asked.

Now, normally, you don't want to get between Mr. Tumblebug and his treasure. Mr. Tumblebug is plenty big, and doesn't care too much about what gets between him and anything. But this wasn't a normally time.

"Oh, perhaps you are referring to Great Mama Two-hands' dung piles?" I asked. "You know she's a great dung collector. She's saving it up for the Idofrod County Fair, where she's sure to take first place again this year."

Mr. Tumblebug was taken aback. Though he is of prodigious size, Great Mamma Two-hands' reputation is bigger.

"Aw, nuts." Mr. Tumblebug said.

I had Mr. Tumblebug right where I wanted.

"Well..." I started. "While Great Mamma Two-hands does love her blue ribbons, she's not so prideful she wouldn't help another creature in need. Are you in need, Mr. Tumblebu--eetle?"

Mr. Tumblebug sat back on his haunches, crushing some saplings. He looked embarrassed.

"Er, uh, you see," he looked around, like he was telling secrets. Great Mama Two-hands' cows, Andy and Betsy; and Great Mama Two-hands' goats, Baphomet and Azazel; and Great Mama Two-hands' sheep, Sleepy and Drowsy, weren't paying him no mind. And Little Good-terms Field Mouse must have just blended into the scenery.

"You know," he continued, "I'm a pretty big fella. But Mrs. Tumblebeetle is BIGGER. And now she's got eggs to lay and says that my dung balls just aren't big enough, and if I want to make her happy and give our little tumbelbeetles-to-be a proper upbringing, I've got to bring home bigger balls than I ever have, and I've looked everywhere, and nobody's got that much dung, and I just don't know what I'm a gonna do..."

Mr. Tumblebug started to sob. I'll admit it wasn't pleasant to see such a grown beetle cry, and I couldn't help but feel partly responsible. Still, it was a necessary part of Jimmy Three-hands' plan.

"Well you just hold on a minute, sir. Now you're putting me in a pretty tight position, me being in charge of security for Great Mama-two hands' dung piles. And while she might not be here right now to consult with, I may be willing to make an exception in your special case. But on one condition."

Mr. Tumblebug looked up, hope gleaming in his shiny black, but somewhat teary, eyes.

"I would be willing to allow you to take these three great piles of dung, if you will afford me the Oath of Debitum!"

Mr. Tumblebug looked shocked. Even though his faceplates aren't so expressive, you could see it there.

"Yes, yes I would. Even that I would give."

"Well I can see you know a fair deal when you see it, sir. In that case, the usual procedures and rituals will apply?"

"I agree to it," said Mr. Tumblebug. "In time of need, you will give three strong stomps on the ground -- ONE, TWO, THREE! -- one with each of your three legs, and I will come to your aid, wherever you may be. You just make sure they are three strong stomps, which I will be able to hear, anywhere in the world."

"Done," I said, and I spat on my right hand and and Mr. Tumblebug spat on his right front forepaw and we shook on it.

Then it was only a matter of giving Mr. Tumblebug time to roll all three piles of dung into one big ball, and start rolling it out through the forest, leaving a wide, wide path of smashed trees and bushes and logs behind him. But the day was still hot, and I wished I'd had some of Great Mama Two-hands' ice-cold strawberry lemonade to sip on while I watched him work.

Jimmy Three-hands 10/14/2020 11:52pm

There I was, standing in hot in the noonday sun in Great Mama Two-hands's pasture with Little Good-terms Field Mouse; Great Mama Two-hands' cows, Andy and Betsy; Great Mama Two-hands' goats, Baphomet and Azazel; Great Mama Two-hands' sheep, Sleepy and Drowsy; three mighty towers of manure; and a bunch of flies.

"Can you make them go away, Jimmy Three-hands?" Little Good-terms asked.

While I did promise to help Little Good-terms Field Mouse with three problems, these three problems were only the first problem, all in rolled into one. And removing these three huge piles of manure wasn't something Jimmy Three-hands was dressed for.

"Why yes I can, Little Good-terms Field Mouse. Yes I can," I said.

Little Good-terms looked at me expectantly. Andy and Betsy, Baphomet and Azazel, and Sleepy and Drowsy didn't pay us much mind.

"Well I can't do it with you looking at me, Little Good-terms. This is MY magic, and I can't just be giving it away. You turn around"

Little Good-terms looked embarrassed. Then he turned around.

The trouble was, I was looking embarrassed too. What was I supposed to do with these monstrous piles of poop? And how did Andy and Betsy, Baphomet and Azazel, and Sleepy and Drowsy come to make such piles?

Just then, I heard a crashing from the woods on the edge of the pasture. And I saw a shaking in the woods on the edge of the pasture. And I saw two big furry black antlers sticking up through the leaves and branches of the woods on the edge of the pasture.

And it was then I came to understand the bigger picture.

"Hello Mr. Tumblebug!" I hollered. "Over here! This way!"

Jimmy Three-hands 9/3/2020 11:24pm

Little Good-terms Field Mouse took me out into Great Mama Two-hands' back yard.

"You just watch yourself near these bottomless kiddie pools," Little Good-terms said.

Little Good-terms Field Mouse led me under Great Mama Two-hand's clothesline.

"You just watch yourself near Great Mama Two-hands' bloomers," Little Good-terms said. "You're don't want to get caught up in those!"

Great Mama Two-hands' bloomers were mighty big.

Little Good-terms Field Mouse scampered under the fence to the pasture.

"You just watch yourself getting through Great Mama Two-hands' fence. There's stinging magic in those wires."

Little Good-terms Field Mouse didn't need to tell me about stinging magic. I used the power of my three legs to jump right over it.

In the pasture, I saw Great Mama Two-hands' cows, Andy and Betsy, and I saw Great Mama Two-hands' goats, Baphomet and Azazel, and I saw Great Mama Two-hands' sheep, Sleepy and Drowsy.

And I saw three great piles of dung. Animal poop. As high as an elephant's eye.

The smell and the flies were terrible.

"This is the first of the three things, Jimmy Three-hands," said Little Good-terms. "Can you make them go away?"

Jimmy Three-hands 7/25/2020 10:58pm

The pies are purrin' on the windoswill at Great Mama Two-hands'.

The loaves are loafin' on the cooling rack at Great Mama Two-hands'.

The berries are blushing in the colander at Great Mama Two-hands'.

"You just sit down and have an ice-cold strawberry lemonade, straight from my lemonade garden," says Great Mama Two-hands.

Great Mama Two-hands turns her two great hands to the ice box. And her two great hands aren't the only thing that's great about Great Mama Two-hands. Great Mama Two-hands is a mighty woman, and her red and white apron turns like a great checkerboard planet, slowly and massively rotating and warping space time in the kitchen. Sometimes it can take a long time for this great cosmic mass to move into a new position, and the guest of Great Mama Two-hands can find some time on their three hands while she does.

"Pssssst! Hey mister!"

And there's a field mouse, not a house mouse, pulling on one of my three pant legs.

"Shooo you field mouse! Before Great Mama Two-hands sees you."

"Aw she don't mind. We're on good terms, Great Mama Two-hands and I."

"Well then what can I help you with, little Good-terms Field Mouse?"

Little Good-terms Field Mouse wiggled his whiskers and looked down at the ground and then looked back up straight into my third eye.

"Well, actually, we got three things, Mr. Jimmy Three-hands."

Great Mama Two-hands 6/16/2020 7:11pm

I knew that Jimmy Three-hands was thinking about me on account of my pies. My pies were signing to me again, pushing their little hot voices up through their vocal vents. Signing in hot streams of strawberry steam and cherry air and blackcap raspberry breath.

"Three! Three! It is heeeeee!" they sang.

My three pies had all heard his song--the song my handsome Jimmy Three-hands. They could feel his three eyes seeing them from afar. They could feel his three nostrils each smelling their smell. They could feel each of his three hands each touching their crust.

"The threeeeeeeeeeeeee!" they cried.

The three tongues of JImmy Three-hands were on their way.

"Heeeeeeeeee!"

I better clean the kitchen.

Jimmy Three-hands 5/4/2020 7:41pm

As the Araceli rose higher and higher, I could see the many lands rising up all around me, like one great big frog eye.

I could see Bakemono Road, but it was too soon to return to that trickster path.

I could see the Land of Nuts, and the Wide Open Sea.

I could see the ancient ruins that are the home of Miraculous Mummy. I could see the battlegrounds of the Phantom Platoon. I could see the forest of Dryad Deluxe; the family estate of Lance, Lord of Mystery (featured in the Forever Cabal cross-over event); and Rescue Rosaria's Land of Adventure. I could even see the Traveling Ant making his way to visit Ultra Lass.

But Jimmy Three-hands was getting tired. Tired of traveling, tired of tricking, tired of tussling with all kinds of ornery critters.

Jimmy-three hands needed rest. And pie.

That's when I knew it was time to pay @Great Mama Two-hands a visit and say "Hello."

Jimmy Three-hands 3/27/2020 8:23pm

Oh it was nice to have Rocky Blaze, star reporter for the Bakemono Register, and his 57 colleagues off the ship.

As soon as the last one was out the door I pulled the Araceli up up and away over the Land of Nuts. I watched Rocky Blaze and all the other newspaper raccoons scamper across the rolling plains of nuts and nut trees, watched them gather all the nuts they could in their creepy little hands and pockets and rush down to the freshwater streams to wash their nuts.

It can be as mesmerizing to watch them as it ls for them to wash them.

Luckily I'd seen it before.

I pulled back on the stick and let the Araceli climb higher and higher.

Jimmy Three-hands 2/21/2020 11:51pm

Nuts. Nuts on trees, nuts in piles, nuts growing out of the ground. Nuts as far as the eye could see.

Nuts all around. And springs and streams of pure rushing water.

You may not associate nuts and raccoons, but you know how raccoons love to wash their food. Well there’s something magical about the effect of nuts on raccoons. They love to wash their nuts. Nuts drive them wild. Nuts drive raccoons into a primordial version of themselves. No raccoon can resist washing their nuts. Give a raccoon some nuts and a creek and you can watch them roll them those nuts around in the water, end over end, over and over, for hours and hours. Raccoons are mesmerized by dem nuts.

“Have at it, you raccoons!”

With the door held wide and the ship held low, I watched the raccoons leave the Araceli, and race into the Land of Nuts.

Jimmy Three-hands 1/17/2020 11:24pm

"This is all well and good, Jimmy Three-hands, but I fear we're getting off the subject. Our readers want to hear YOUR story, not the story of some Traveling Ant."

Rocky Blaze, star reporter for the Bakemono Register, sat down his pad and pen with his cute little raccoon hands, and looked up at me with his cute little raccoon eyes. But I knew these Raccoon reporters were anything but cute. They were dangerous. And with the Araceli full of Raccoon photographers, Raccoon editors, Raccoon proofreaders, and Raccoon copy raccoons, Jimmy Three-hands was still up to his three arm pits in a heap of trouble.

I needed them off my tail.

"Well I was about gettin' to that," I explained kindly to the little rabid journalist. "The Traveling Ant played a big role in who Jimmy Three-hands came to be. And who he's going to be."

What Rocky Blaze, star reporter for the Bakemono Register, didn't realize is we'd been in the air a long time. So caught up in Jimmy Three-hands' story, none of the little media-minded badger bears noticed just where we'd flown to.

"Oh my!" I said, doing my best to sound honestly surprised. "Well will you look at that. Just you see what we're flying over right now!"

All the Raccoons crowded around the windows and looked out.

Below us, stretched out in all directions as far as the eye could see, it was the Land of Nuts.

Jimmy Three-hands 12/12/2019 10:13pm

"Now as you know," said the Traveling Ant, "Traveling Ants are rare."

"You might find us traveling alone, or in pairs, but you won't find too many.

But let me tell you there are a LOT of ants. Ants in tunnels. Ants in tunnels in mounds. Ants in tunnels underground! Ants in tunnels in trees and rocks and clouds and in the very fabric of the dimensions.

A lot of people might tell you about worm holes, but it's ants who really have the place tunneled out.

Like all ants, Traveling Ants have to come from someplace, and that's the tunnels. I spent a whole lifetime in the tunnels. More than one lifetime, in fact. And let me tell you when you're an ant in the tunnels that's all you need. That's all there is! There's the tunnels, and the thing about tunnels is, when you're in them that's ALL there is.

What's outside the tunnels? Well, by definition: nothing. Ant physics has no way to describe what's outside the tunnel, because it's not tunnel! As soon as they start digging in that stuff, what do they find? More tunnel!

See where I'm going with this? I'm digging my own tunnel trying to explain it.

The point is, it's not in an ant's nature to see outside the tunnels. Sure, you might see ants crawling around outside their tunnels underground, but even then--what do you see? Ants in a line! Ants following the scent of the other ants. If it's not a tunnel dug then it's a tunnel defined by pheromones and other specialized chemical markers, just as real and sturdy as any tunnel ants inhabit.

But some of us ants see a bigger picture.

And some of us leave the tunnels and discover we can make our own way on the outside, in the space that ants don't even have words for.

And that's how a Traveling Ant gets born.