"The Escape"
Looking back toward the trap I found a little yellow mouse struggling under the trap’s steel catch. He had apparently saved my life; pushing me out of the way a split second before the trap had snapped. It surely would have killed me if it hadn’t been for the little mouse. Unfortunately for him, he was now caught under the steel catch bar of the trap. It had come down right on his chest and he seemed to be having a hard time breathing.
“Hold still, little mouse,” I stated quietly, trying to keep him calm, “I’ll get you out of there.”
I positioned myself carefully; my legs on either side of the little mouse. As I stood over him, I reached down and grabbed hold of the steel catch. Exerting all of my strength, I lifted the steel bar off of him.
“Okay, little mouse, run!” I told him.
He scurried as fast as he could through the crevice in the wall, limping and gasping for air. I released the steel catch, which snapped with enough force to flip the mousetrap into the air. Looking back toward at the crevice, it suddenly occurred to me that the little yellow mouse had been wearing a full suit of clothes!
“Very strange,” I thought, “although it can’t be much stranger than being three inches tall and transported to this cave by a Green Devil.”
Forgetting all about my hunk of cheese (which had fallen to the floor in all of the excitement), I worked my way slowly back toward the table. Fortunately, it appeared that all of these goings on had gone undetected by the robot. I flew up quietly behind the cage.
“Hey,” I whispered, trying to get the girls’ attention, “you’ll never guess what I just saw.”
Startled, all three girls jumped up in fright. Cindy actually took to the air and was now clinging to the top of the cage.
“Don’t do that,” scolded Melissa.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized.
“You almost scared the daylights out of us,” added Lisa.
“Look at poor Cindy,” noted Melissa pointing to the top of the cage where she still clung.
“Come on down, Cin,” I whispered loudly, “I’ll tell you about the little mouse I saw.”
“If you saw a little mouse, then I’m not coming down.”
“Cindy. Down,” ordered Lisa, as if she was a disobedient pet.
“I’m coming,” she stated reluctantly.
“Forget the mouse,” began Melissa, “did you reprogram the robot?”
“I think so, but I wasn’t able to test him from the inside,” I explained. “Lisa, do me a favor. See if you can call the robot over for more water.”
“Sure. Robot, I’d like some more water, please,” Lisa stated aloud. The robot was silent. The lights on his chest still flickered normally, but he didn’t make a more toward us.
“Robot, get me some water,” she repeated in a more irritated tone.
“Perfect,” I said.
“What do mean ‘perfect’?” Melissa asked, “the last time Lisa wanted water he came right over, this time...nothing.”
“Ohhhh” whined Cindy, “you broke him.”
“I didn’t break him, watch this,” I stated, “Robot, come here.”
The robot immediately began to roll toward us.
“I merely reprogrammed him to respond only to my voice and my commands,” I explained proudly, “not a bad job, if I do say so myself.”
“All right, boy genius,” said Lisa, “now get us out of here.”
“Certainly. Robot, open the cage,” I commanded.
“Affirmative-master” he replied in his monotone.
“Master?” laughed Melissa.
“Well...” I started, “it’s not my fault. I’m not the one who programmed his vocabulary.”
Lifting the latch on the cage, the robot opened the door.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Cindy.
“Wait a second, Cindy,” started Melissa, “if we leave this lab now, we may never find a way back to our normal heights.”
“Melissa’s right,” started Lisa, stepping out of the cage, “Robot, how do we un-shrink ourselves?” The robot was silent.
“He can’t hear you, Lisa,” reminded Melissa, “he will only respond to ‘his Master’s voice,’” she chuckled, “isn’t that right, Sir Lawrence?” she mocked.
“Very funny,” I responded, joining Lisa on the table top. Melissa and Cindy soon followed.
“I-can-hear-you-but-I-can-only-respond-to-queries-from-my-master,” stated the robot.
“By all means then,” laughed Lisa, “Larry, query away.”
“Robot, can you get us back to our normal sizes?”
“Negative. Solution-is-not-found-in-my-memory. Lived-Neerg-knows-how-to...”
“...but he won’t tell us,” interrupted Lisa.
“...and-Bringle-knows,” continued the robot, “but-he-cannot-tell-you.”
“What’s a Bringle?” asked Cindy.
“I think Bringle is a ‘who’ not a ‘what’,” corrected Melissa.
“So okay, ‘who’s’ Bringle and why can’t he tell us?” repeated Cindy.
The robot remained silent. After a few moments, the three girls looked at me in exasperation, waiting for me to ask the question. I sighed.
“Robot,” I ordered, “please respond to all further questions, requests or orders from Melissa, Lisa and Cindy; as well as myself.”
“Affirmative. To-answer-the-last-query, Bringle-Brand-of-Jingleland-was-a-resident-of-the-cage-before-you. One-day, he-managed-to-escape. He-de-energized-me-and-he-then-began-to-reprogram-me.”
“Oh he did, did he?” questioned Melissa, casting a skeptically glance in my direction.
“Affirmative. When-I-was-re-energized-by-Lived-Neerg, I-ran-diagnostics-to-evaluate-what-damage-he-had-done-to-me. It-was-determined-that-he-had-been-tampering-with-my-audio-inputs. I-assessed-that-he-had-been-planning-to-have-me-respond-only-to-his-voice-commands.”
Melissa cast me a doubting look.
“Ah, Larry?” asked Melissa in a condescending way.
“Yes?” I responded hesitantly, knowing full well what she was getting at.
“I thought you said that you reprogrammed him?”
“Ah...” I began, “well..., I thought I was. I did get to enter my voice patterns.” Melissa frowned a little.
“Robot,” I stated quickly, changing the subject, “why didn’t this Bringle ever finish the reprogramming?”
“Since-I-was-de-energized, I-do-not-know-for-sure. I-have-ascertained-that-Lived-Neerg-must-have-caught-him-and-punished-him-before-he-had-time-to-finish. He-now-resides-in-the-mouse-hole.” The robot pointed with his pincer and outstretched arm to the crevice.
“You mean he’s a...mouse?” questioned Cindy, taking a step back from the edge of the table; obviously afraid of mice.
“He wouldn’t happen to be a little yellow mouse, would he?” I asked.
“WARNING!” interrupted the robot, loudly, “Lived-Neerg-approaches!”
The robot rolled back to his corner. We all scrambled quickly back into the cage and shut the door behind ourselves.
“Why does that robot sound an awful lot like he was programmed off of an old TV show?” noted Lisa.
“Shhhh,” I cautioned.
A bright, green flash appeared in the middle of the room and Lived Neerg, the Green Devil, materialized. He was humming a macabre (and off key) tune. Waddling his pear shape over toward the shelf of books, he began muttering and mumbling to himself.
“First we shrink them into little miceys,” his weasely voice sang out, “and then we teach them how to do little tricks! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!”
“See!” demanded Cindy, feeling vindicated as the Green Devil confirmed her tiny piglet theory.
“Shhhh!” urged Lisa.
Lived Neerg plopped himself down on a rickety old stool. As he did this, dust went flying everywhere. He started coughing and dancing around in little circles, yelling at the robot to make sure he cleaned the place up.
When the dust settled and he finally sat down again, he began to flip through a large ancient-looking book. This book sat atop an old podium that was even ricketier and duster than the stool had been. From where we were, the ancient book looked to be hundreds of years old and was at least eight inches thick!
Dust flew up with every turn of the page and Lived Neerg stopped to cough and fan the dust away from his face numerous times. All the while he sat there muttering incomprehensibly. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of thumbing through the tome, he stood up and began searching over his dusty shelves of even dustier flasks and bottles. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he began to get more and more frantic, muttering louder than ever.
“Where’s my micey formula! I want my micey formula!” his shrill little voice rang out. The Green Devil now began jumping up and down like a child having a temper tantrum.
“Rupert! Where’s my micey formula?” He was evidently addressing the robot.
“Rupert the Robot?” Lisa asked me in hushed tones.
“Hey, I didn’t name, either.”
“Silence, little people!” shrieked Lived Neerg. His shrill voice was so grating.
“Just wait till I find my micey formula!” he shrieked warningly.
“Not if we can help it,” I started, “Robot, seize him!”
Rupert the robot reached out to grab hold of the little imp, but the Green Devil was too quick for him, jumping out of harm’s way. Lived Neerg then reached around and yanked out the square power supply from the side of the robot. Rupert immediately slumped forward; de-energized and useless.
“Head for the mouse hole crevice!” I yelled.
Pushing open the parakeet cage door, we all took off. Cindy and Lisa got a head start as I tripped over the edge of the cage, tumbling to the tabletop. Melissa helped me up and we quickly flew out to join the others. Cindy and Lisa were just reaching the crevice by the floor.
Lived Neerg, clutching the power pack in one hand, frantically waved his other little claw. Mostly grasping at thin air, he tried to catch us in mid-flight. After numerous close-calls, he managed to swipe Melissa out of the air.
“Larry! Help me!” she shouted from his clutched claw.
Flying up to one of the shelves full of chemicals, I wrapped my arms around a dusty little eye dropper. Using all of my might, I unscrewed it from the bottle of red liquid that it was encrusted onto. Once freeing the dropper, I flew over toward the Green Devil, struggling all the way with the dropper.
Swooping down toward the floor, I tried to keep out of the Green Devil’s line of sight. Using all of my strength again, I squeezed the red liquid from the heavy, dusty eye dropper. Three or four drops of the thick, red stuff landed right on Lived Neerg’s bare, clawed foot.
“Oooouuchhh!” he screamed, suddenly letting go of both the power pack and Melissa.
Dropping the empty eye dropper, I quickly positioned myself under the falling Melissa to catch her. I can’t say that I actually did catch her, because as she landed in my outstretched arms, we fell like lead weights to the floor. Fortunately we weren’t that far away from the ground at the time, so I didn’t get too hurt as I broke her fall. The Green Devil shook his little fists in the air.
“Cursed little people!” he screamed, as Melissa and I had rejoined the others. Removing his hat, Lived Neerg grabbed his tail and stuck the tip of it into his hat, disappearing in the now customary green flash.
“Let’s get out of here before he comes back,” suggested Lisa.
“But what do we do about our size?” asked Cindy, “I don’t like being tiny.
“That’s no problem,” came a warm and comforting voice from inside the crevice.
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