The Alligator Smuggler and the Journey Through the Northwest
The alligator smugglers are two pink alligators named Pirate Pete and
Smuggler Sam (Pete and Sam for short). This may sound a bit peculiar, but
they love to catch blue alligators. And sometimes that was their trouble.
That is to say, they got into a lot of trouble trying to steal blue
alligators.
They were in such a predicament now. Pete and Sam were chasing a blue
alligator (actually it was only a plain green one who had accidently eaten
an overactive pill that morning) with a net. It was a nice big one too.
Just the kind that they liked to do their housework. It was a fine
specimen of--
Pete and Sam were falling off a cliff into thin air! "Isn't it funny,"
said Sam as he bumped into a limb sticking out of the side of the cliff,
"that pink alligators always," as he bumped into a sharp stone, "get into
trouble when they steal blue alligators?"
Thud.
The alligator smugglers had landed on a little piece of the cliff that
treacherously jutted out into a valley and the Columbia River below!
A gopher stuck his head out of a hole. "What's the idea of landing on the
roof of my house?" he shouted angrily, frightfully pushing them toward the
edge of the cliff. "I'll teach you not to come here again!"
The alligators were still unconscious.
The gopher went back into his hole, muttering, "Got to get rid of them two
quick, but I wouldn't just like to kill them. Well, I'll check my
supplies."
A moment later the gopher returned, dragging two balloons with him. "I'll
just blow up these balloons, tie them to their tails and push them off,"
said the gopher. "That way it will be up to them to save themselves, not
me." After the animal had done all this, he returned to his nap, thinking
no more of the matter.
Two gunmen were having lunch by the river.
"Oh look!" said the first gunman. "Let's see if we cannot shoot those
balloons up there, Senor, way in the distance."
A moment later the alligators were plummetting through the air
again--down--down--down--CRASH! The smugglers, with all their luck, had
landed on top of a barge puffing up the Columbia River!
"It was a hit, Senor," the gunman said gravely. "Come to think of it, my
imagination my be going wild, but did you not see something pink flashing
in the sky?"
"Hey, what's this?" asked the captain of the barge. "I hear a big crash
in front of me, I look down, and I see this hole in the floor!
Unfortunately I can't inspect. I must hurry on with my load of
rockets."
The alligators had now crashed into the hold of the barge, where there was
a load of rockets. Having finally revived, Pete and Sam were astounded at
the situation they were in.
Since they knew they were doomed in this place for a long time, they
decided to make the best of it. Pete held up a match. "What's this?" he
said. Not really expecting an answer, he started trying to write things
on the floor. Instead the match lit, and it gave Sam a terrific idea.
"Put that next to that over there and this over here," Sam instructed
Pete, pointing to the miniature rockets all over the floor. Then Pete and
Sam got on the miniature rockets, the engines started up, and ZOOOOM! The
alligators went crashing through the top of the barge, over the cliffs by
the Columbia River, soaring by forests and meadows, and finally they
landed on the very top of Mt. Adams. The captain of the barge was looking
at this painstaking scene sadly.
Pete and Sam decided to slide down Mt. Adams on bread sacks. They checked
their compass to see which way was north and which way was south.
Unfortunately, they accidentally slid down the North side instead of the
South side so it turned out to be a very bumpy ride. Up and down, up and
down, up and down, suddenly a net slid over them! Then someone came out
from behind a snowdrift. Oh, how could they have been so foolish! They
had fallen into the clutches of Green Elephant, their worst enemy! (He
had been given that name by the smugglers since sometimes he turned a very
strange dark green.) He flashed an evil grin at the smugglers and said,
"Now at last I have you truly in my clutches! And this time you will not
get away! I'm going to tie you to the railroad tracks!" Pete and Sam
turned almost green themselves with fright. A train was due in Maryhill
in about two minutes. If Green Elephant got them on the tracks in time
they wouldn't have a chance to escape!
As it turned out Green Elephant did get them to the tracks in time, and
barely too. The Union Pacific locomotive came chugging into view just
afterwards.
The alligators had not totally given up hope yet, however. They tried to
get the ropes off their necks, which was a rather hard thing to do since
they had to bend their heads 180 degrees to do it. To add to their
troubles, Green Elephant was just standing behind a tree laughing at them.
Even if they could escape the train, which was virtually impossible, they
would have to dodge Green Elephant.
But Pete and Sam had done these tricks before. They bit the ropes in two
(the train was within about ten feet of them now and chugging on steadily)
fled off the tracks (the train whizzed by) and immediately ran off in the
opposite way the train was going. (Fortunately this was also the way that
Green Elephant was not.) Green Elephant was quick though, and soon he was
on their tail. They fled through the cherry orchards of Maryhill (as
Green Elephant couldn't climb trees, they made the best of this and ran
over ladders from tree to tree. Actually they found only one ladder to
use so what they did was this. They stretched the ladder from one tree to
another, ran across the ladder, picked it up, and stretched it to the next
tree.) When they were through with the cherry orchards they went through
the apple, apricot, and peach orchards in the same pattern. In this way
they covered a few miles very quickly, and so they soon got to
Stonehenge.
At Stonehenge they climbed over all the stones and pillars, and quickly
lost Green Elephant. (Green Elephant had a very bad sense of direction.)
They were finally on their own again, without Green Elephant to hinder
them.
But they had forgotten about their other enemy, Moneymakers. Moneymakers
was a nasty Jigger. (I called him a Jigger since he looks like a Tigger
but the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is that there's only one.) He
liked to make people work for him. The alligators, before having gotten
to know him, confessed readily that they really liked his boats and planes
(but they were most likely really made by his slaves). Actually, they
still do like the things that Moneymakers says he constructs!
Pete and Sam did not think much about these things, however. They just
thought that they were finally free to catch more blue alligators. So
they immediately started off with their net. Aha! They heard some
rustling over there in that grass! Maybe it was a blue alligator hiding.
They sneaked over there as quietly as they could. Then they brought their
net up high and--
What was this? There was something around them! It was a net!
They checked to see if they had accidently put the net around themselves
instead of the supposed blue alligator, but they hadn't. Then they
realized what had happened! It was Moneymakers, that nasty fiend, who was
going to make them work for their living (and even then they might not
live)! "Now I've really got you," he said, and then he muttered to
himself, "even if it's Green Elephant's net I'm borrowing." Pete and Sam
laughed under their breath, though the situation they were in was anything
but funny.
Moneymakers pushed his eyebrows down so far the smugglers thought they
would blend into his eyes. "Just for that one little snicker, I'll make
you work double at my resort, which is near Mt. Rainier. I have a cabin
up there where tourists can fish and lodge and, most of all, give me
money." He glared at the smugglers fiercely.
A short while later they were on their way to Mt. Rainier, and the place
that Moneymakers referred to as "the best resort in the U.S." Of course,
Moneymakers had a chauffer. The chauffer's name was Cumbercutter, a very
common name for akrypteses, which was what he was. Cumbercutter was also
a slave for Moneymakers, but he was the one and only slave that enjoyed
his work as a criminal.
They all arrived at the cabin, Pete and Sam were put to work, and
Moneymakers curled up on the couch and watched cartoons or read comic
books.
With Moneymakers being so occupied with his time, you'd think the
alligators could escape. But they couldn't and here's the reason:
Moneymakers had a burglar alarm system that worked from the inside!
But the smugglers quickly solved this problem, they used a window.
Smugglers aren't as dumb as you think!
The alligators left as soon as they could, believe me. Now they didn't
have anymore enemies to worry about, and they were free to do--to do--they
were free to do what? They had forgotten what they were free to do! This
was a calamity!
Well, they might as well hitch a ride to their home in Arizona. They
grabbed a handy hippopotamus (actually, there weren't very many around Mt.
Rainier so they grabbed one that happened to be nearby). They had a very
bumpy ride through the forests and mountains. In fact, it was so bumpy
that Pete and Sam both whizzed off at about 80 miles per hour, heading for
the nearest tree! They grabbed the trunk on it (which turned out to be
very skinny) and it swayed backwards with their weight. Then it started
to sway forward. "Hold on!" Sam shouted, but the stress was too much.
They went whizzing off into space!
"Hey, where are we?" questioned Pete when he finally came to. "I feel
like I'm being crushed with weight, and it's not just by you, Sam.
It's--I--I--well whadya know? We're surrounded by blue alligators!"
Instantly Sam came to also. "Tons of alligators!" he exclaimed, shaking
his head and wiping the sweat from his face. "We must be on planet QB,
Pete, because we've come here before and--why, I think I know what we were
going to do earlier! We were going to capture blue alligators to do our
housework!"
Without further ado, the alligators slingshotted a couple of blue
alligators to Earth, somehow got there themselves, recollected their wits
and got back to the alligator smugglers' hideout in Arizona (this time
they didn't ride a hippopotamus). They had had quite an adventure, but
most of it had been worth it. They now had a couple of shiny, new,
blue alligators to do their housework.
The End
Note: You may ask yourself, why have people not seen blue alligators
before? Well, the only person who ever saw a blue alligator was Leif
Erickson, the first person to touch America. After that, the blue
alligators became scared of people and either hid in caves on Earth or
went to space. As for Leif Erickson, he saw so many other "strange
animals" that he forgot to mention blue alligators.
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