5. La-La Land

The following was written on Mar 05, 2008. A rescued story from my discarded blog.

"Now about this vanishing business," continued the Egg, almost seriously but not quite managing it, "You need to go to La-La Land. When you are there, the Dumpty says you should look for the Big Fat Duchess of Yolk and do whatever she says.He says he would bring you to her himself except her yolk-coloured dress quite upsets him. Upsets me too, for that matter. Though La-La knows if I even have yolk." And the Egg grinned.

"Thank Humpty Dumpty for me," smiled Maggy Donut. "I'll stop by the Wall if I have time,"

"Yes, thank you!" said Quantis.

The Happy Egg gave a big bouncy smile and an English roll to each of them before rolling off into a smiling mist.

Quantis and Maggy Donut chewed on their English rolls. They were delicious and egg-free.

"The thing to do," began Maggy Donut, chewing thoughtfully, "the thing to do is to find this Big Fat Duchess of Yolk and see what she has to say. But we must be careful. You never know who is sane in La-La Land, or who even belongs to the Land. And they're forever making up new rules. Some quite silly too."

"What's La-La Land?" asked Quantis. "And can Twiggedo get us there?"

"It's the Land of Nursery Rhymes," said Maggy Donut. "The great historian Enid Blyton once chronicled it in the Adventures of the Rocking Horse, if I'm not mistaken. And inter-world travel is my specialty, not Twigeddo's. His specialty is intra-world travelling.Twiggedo!"

Twiggedo stopped chasing butterflies and padded obediently to his mistress. She produced a soft, bright red collar and slipped it gently over Twiggedo's invisible neck. She clipped an invisible leash to from the collar to her cloak.

"To stop anyone from kidnapping him," she explained. "Now hold unto my hand. We're about to go to La-La Land!"

Holding Quantis with one hand and waving a book of nursery rhymes in the other, our witch chanted in soprano,

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,

All the King's horses and all the King's men

Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.

Twiggedo chimed in with a drawling tenor.

In a puff of whirling colours and eccentric oddities, they arrived in La-La Land.

La-La Land.

The first thing you noticed about it was the brilliant colours. All the surrounding trees and hills and grass and cottages looked like they had just stepped out of a brightly illustrated children's storybook. As your eyes adjusted to the kaleidoscope of colours, the next thing you noticed was that every object and every character was outlined with by brushes of black ink.

Quantis, who was quite an observant girl, observed even more. She observed that some of the creatures looked like they were coloured with colour pencils, others with crayons, and still others with paint. Some had no colour at all. These looked like they had stepped out of ancient manuscripts. The landscape itself varied from acre to acre.

Maggy was asking for directions from an cute sheep of the darkest black.

Baa Baa Black Sheep,

Have you any clue?

Yes or no sheep, the way to the

Big Fat Duchess of Yolk? ,

Who's -uh- down with the flu?S

"Sto-o-p!" baa-ed the sheep indignantly. "First of all, that was TERRIBLE! Clue and Yolk and Flu?! They don't rhyme! And there's no rhythmn, no shape, no poetry! And SECOND of all , baa baa, I'm not the black sheep who got ripped off with that wool stuff." The sheep gave a shake of his voluminous black wool.

"So-" began Maggy Donut.

"I-aiiii'm not finished," continued the sheep. "Thirdly, you should know better, Maggy Donut, than to speak in rhyme to sheep. We don't like it."

"Wooly-de-Dooly!" cried Maggy Donut. "It's you! I'd recognise your indignation anywhere, even if your wool is black!"

"Harumph," harumphed Wooly-de-Dooly. Four black paws bounded up to Wooly-de-Dooly and an invisible tongue licked its ears affectionately.

"Alllll right," baa-ed the sheep. "Whaddaya want? And be quick about it. I've got a hoovedecure soon."

++to be continued.