Chapter Thirty-Four: Breakout

Fred the Chocolate Lab stood outside the small cave entrance, trying not to melt in the light of two suns. Of course, trying not to melt didn’t make any difference; he was melting anyway, but at least his intention was not to melt. But melting also didn’t seem to make any difference – somehow he was both melting and reforming in each moment, like a constant battle of nature.

Inside the cave, his friends were keeping the gateway between realms open. He very much wanted to go inside and see how he could help, but he was too big, and he wasn’t about to go try that shrinking water and lose his memories again. Dangerous stuff, that water, he thought to himself. He tried squeezing himself in as he melted, hoping that would somehow work, but his size and shape remained the same.

“Any sign?” came Jerry’s voice from inside the cave. Continue reading “Chapter Thirty-Four: Breakout” →

Chapter Twenty-One: The Cave

Montgomery the Mouse scampered through the grass as quickly as his little legs could carry him. Open space like this made him nervous, especially on such a bright day, when it would be so easy for a bird of prey to spot him.

Why was it so bright, anyway? The last thing he could remember, he was in the cold early winter weather of Maine with all his friends, but now he was in hot, bright, summer sunlight, all alone. And even the sunlight didn’t seem right – it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

He wondered if this was a dream. Surely it was a dream.

“Montgomery! Over here!” It was Jerry. He was higher up on a hillside far away – at least twenty feet, which is a lot when you’re as small as they are. Luckily for Montgomery, mice can run fast when they need to.

As he sprinted he saw a shadow overhead – a large bird of some kind, which was his biggest fear. His heart beat faster than it ever had before, and he kept running. Keep going, he told himself. You can do it. Continue reading “Chapter Twenty-One: The Cave” →

Chapter Twelve: Previously… Riding to Maine

“So this is taking us all the way to Lake Damariscotta?” Tommy whispered to Jerry, as the dug snuffled its way under the seats.

“Well, it’s taking us somewhere in Maine,” Jerry replied, “I’m not sure where, but this will get us somewhere closer than here.”

Jerry pushed a broken peanut butter cracker forward for the dug to eat. There was plenty of food under the seats with them, which was enough for the kids to think that’s what the animal was really after.

“Hmmm,” Tommy continued. “Well, OK, but how are we going to get from wherever we end up to where we need to go?” Continue reading “Chapter Twelve: Previously… Riding to Maine” →

Chapter Fourteen: Escape

“No, wait, he’s Jerry…”

“And I’m Tommy.”

“No, that doesn’t make sense either. Look, one of us is Jerry, and one of us is Tommy, and you can figure out which one is which later.”

“Umm, okay,” Montgomery the Moose responded quietly, keen not to draw attention to himself. Off in the distance, the orange jackets were still running around, looking confused.

“We’re looking for help. Can you help us?” Tommy asked hopefully.

“Umm, not right now…” Montgomery was wondering how he could stop these two from making so much noise.

“Oh, well, yeah, I know you’re in a bit of a predicament right now,” Jerry added, aware that Montgomery’s focus was somewhere else.

“But maybe we can help you get out of here,” Tommy jumped in.

“And then maybe you can help us. Continue reading “Chapter Fourteen: Escape” →

Chapter Nine: Elsewhere… “HeygoogleheysiriINEEDHELP!”

“Jerry, we should have told the truth,” Tommy protested, as the two brothers made their way through some tall grass which ran alongside the bike path by their home.

“We did,” Jerry replied. “I mean, we told her we’re going on an adventure.”

“Yeah, but we say that to mom all the time, and we usually just set up shelter for a few nights by a pond or a playground or something. That’s not the same as going to Maine to find a secret magical land with a dragon in it.”

Jerry nodded gently to show that he took Tommy’s point, but he wasn’t backing down.

“Look,” he continued, “our adventures often take several days. This one might take several days too. So what’s the difference? The only difference is that she’d worry about us, or stop us from going.”

“And maybe that’s for a good reason,” Tommy argued, as they stepped through a chain-link fence and under a large set of metal bleachers which sat next to the field where Jerry had ridden on a dug a few days earlier.

“Tommy, it’s OK. Look, I’m your big brother – I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” Continue reading “Chapter Nine: Elsewhere… “HeygoogleheysiriINEEDHELP!”” →

Chapter Seven: Elsewhere… “Gone Feshing”

When Tommy awoke in his tiny bed in his tiny home in a hole in the ground in North Cambridge, he woke up to an unusual sound. Tommy liked to sleep in, so often he’d wake up to the sound of either Jerry or their mother clambering around making breakfast, or to the sound of birts chirping close by – spirrows or curdinels. But today, the birds were quiet, and he couldn’t hear his family at all. In fact, Tommy heard nothing – just peace and quiet.

He liked the quiet, and decided to sleep a little longer. But after a while, his curiosity got the best of him and he got up to find out where his brother and mother were.

He got out of bed and found a note on the dining table a foot away.

The note read, “Gone feshing! Back soon.”

Fesh, generally speaking, was the only meat Tommy, Jerry and their mother ate, but it wasn’t always an easy meal. There were many family tales of going feshing and being pulled into the water by a fesh much bigger than themselves. Sometimes – which was even scarier – they were pulled in by a tertle. Continue reading “Chapter Seven: Elsewhere… “Gone Feshing”” →

Chapter Five: Elsewhere… Jerry and Tommy and the Dug

Jerry and Tommy lived in the North Cambridge neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Not that they realized this, of course – they were only six inches tall. Well, Jerry was 6 inches tall. His younger brother Tommy was more like five 1/2 inches tall.

They lived in a small burrow close to a bike path with their mother, so they saw people like you and me every day, though they would consider us giants. They didn’t know whether their people had been the size of giants like you and me and had been shrunk down or whether the giants like you and me had once been like them and had been turned into giants. They only knew that, according to their mother, it had been like this as far back as she knew. Jerry and Tommy had friends and relatives all over the place, but they were spread out enough that, at their size, they may as well be in Timbuktu. Of course, Jerry and Tommy had never heard of Timbuktu, nor even knew that anything at all existed that far away from them.

Continue reading “Chapter Five: Elsewhere… Jerry and Tommy and the Dug” →

Montgomery the Moose

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Category: Jerry and Tommy