The Wobbit, page 11
“We’re here to keep this treasure,” Sorkinshield began again. “We didn’t come all this way to come home poor, and we’ve already come home. All that’s left is to sit here for as long as it takes for everybody else to get tired and leave. Now, who’s with me?”
Beefer started a slow clap, and the others joined in, but it never sped up because they had literally been walking for months and were insanely tired.
“I think we should talk this through first,” said Billy. Sorkinshield gestured toward the Talking Corridor. He’d been lacking a Talking Corridor the entire YOLO, but now that they were back on Little People terrain, there was at last one at hand. Together he and Billy entered the figure-eight-shaped hallway, which enabled them to walk and talk forever or until the camera ran out of film.
“Look at my face,” snapped Sorkinshield.
“Listen—” Billy started.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But—”
“Does the great man settle for good?”
“I’m just saying—”
“Saying what?”
“Maybe we could—”
“Could what?”
“Aar—”
“Don’t get cute with me.”
“—on . . .”
“Listen, kid. I have two degrees from Harvard, one from Stanford, and a double doctorate from Oxford. I even have a master’s degree in Listing Degrees from the Yale School of Dramatic Drama.”
“P—”
“Do I think it’s going to work?”
“le—”
“You bet your ass I do.”
“ase—”
“Now let’s get going!”
Sorkinshield exited the Talking Corridor, and all the Little People cheered. They vowed to work harder than they ever had at sitting in one place. But even though wobbits are perhaps Widdle Wearth’s foremost experts in sitting, Billy did not share the Little Peoples’ enthusiasm. He had an uneasy feeling in his gut, and he didn’t think it was because of those Video Music Awards he’d eaten earlier.
The others began barricading the Mountain with Zero Friends, blocking it off from all outside contact. They were mostly just going through the motions, since everybody knew you didn’t need to do much to keep people away from the Mountain with Zero Friends.
Billy checked his phone and, after laughing at some uproarious tweets from his favorite Twitter account, @harvardlampoon, read a tweet from one of the Ravens. It appeared that soon they would have reinforcements—Sorkinshield’s more sociopathic cousin, Bain, was coming with an army. Bain’s Little People came from a dark, cruel land, where all were trapped in a pit, from which the only means of escape was climbing out.
This made the Little People more confident, which meant only one thing. It was time to burst into a jazzy rap about their dear leader:I
Inside the mountain we do fit,
Though barely, when we squeeze a bit.
With Sorkinshield, (our thighs congealed)
Until they leave, here we will sit.
He is a mighty leader when,
With parable and wit and ken
Sly jokes he cracks and heads he smacks,
His Nielsen rating’s close to ten.
It hasn’t always been this way,
Once laugh tracks ruled and steered the day;
But buddy cops, and slapstick flops,
Won’t match when he has words to say.
Our Sorkinshield will have his fun;
But someday sagas must be done.
Yes, what to do when things are through?
He starts again at season one.
His stories tell of gall and guts,
Of presidents and kings he tuts
Until they fold, and leave the gold
We’ll stay here with him on our butts.
But has his saga heard its knell?
Though unforeseen, till time does tell,
We’ll never balk at walk-and-talk
And hearing politicians yell.
Inside the mountain we do fit,
Though barely, when we squeeze a bit.
With Sorkinshield, (our thighs congealed)
Until they leave, here we will sit.
The repeated refrain at the end was probably unnecessary, and Billy wasn’t so sure of Sorkinshield’s plan. He felt it relied rather heavily on monologues and finishing other people’s sentences. But he waited with the rest of them until the next day. Then, sure enough, something else happened.
From over the horizon came a flood of Humans. Humans of every shape and size, though most of them were roughly human-size. It turns out that these Humans were on their way to a fantasy convention, where they would play make-believe as people in another universe. It was called CommaCon, because they would obsess over the most mundane details of life in an alternate reality, like how to properly use the Oxford comma and how not to badly split infinitives. They played at being actuaries and pediatricians instead of the usual boring archers and blacksmiths they had to be in real life. They had vivid and grotesque fantasies about paying a graduated income tax.
Then came the next wave of Humans, and it is this wave with which our YOLO is concerned. These Humans did not have the leisure of getting to attend fantasy conventions as traveling salesmen; they’d all been shafted with tedious day jobs where they fought to the death for honor and glory and revenge.
Forward stepped the commander of their forces, though carefully so as not to reveal his front side. Then he swirled around, sending his cape aflutter. Everyone gasped.
“Bard the Batman!” cried Sorkinshield.
“No,” Bard said grimly, “I am just an ordinary billionaire. I drive a very normal-person car. It is called a Honda Civic. I know that my girlfriend loves me for my money, and not for my superpowers. But today I am here because I want you to surrender this mountain.” And so the two began an exchange of informed dialogue.
“I cannot do that,” said Sorkinshield.
“You can too,” argued Bard.
“Can not.”
“Can too.”
“Can not.”
All the Little People sat as hard as they possibly could. Their resolve would be an inspiration for generations to come. It was as if they had been born for this (or, in Doc’s case, stillborn for this).
“All right,” said Bard, walking back to his Honda Civic. Everyone waited in suspense.
“What now?” asked Billy.
“I don’t know,” said Sorkinshield. “I’ve never ended anything on a clif
* * *
Later, the Little People grew tired from all the sitting and came to the conclusion it was time to lie down. They agreed to take turns guarding their food supply. Billy and Doc went first because nobody liked either of them. Everyone else got out their blankies and adorable Little Person nightcaps and went to sleep.II
How was the poor wobbit ever going to get home at this rate? Sitting got them nowhere. He couldn’t die in this mountain. Perhaps another mountain on another day, but this one would make for the most awkward eternity ever. He had to act—and I mean really act, not just string together a bunch of overworded retorts.
“Hey, Doc, could you stare uninterrupted at that wall for about five hours?” asked Billy.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” chuckled Doc.
“Great,” said Billy. “It’s for no particular reason.”
As Doc privately celebrated his very first words of the book, Billy smuggled the Arkinstone into one of his kangaroo pouches and slipped on the anklet, transforming into a forty-eight fps nausea-inducing blunder. He slid through an emotional crack in the Mountain with Zero Friends—a weakness for rhubarb pie, like its mother used to make—and landed on a conveniently placed trampoline, where he bounced for the better part of an hour.
After he broke the trampoline, he sneaked past the guards of the opposing forces. They were followers of the Elvisking, and were naturally too busy arguing about where they should have their bodies signed to notice another body entering the fray.
But after spotting the nearby stream, the wobbit could not help but splash around and try to rid himself of the mountain’s stench.
“Wait a minute,” said an Elven Fangirl. “That water flying through the air for no particular reason is giving me a headache.”
They realized somebody was in the water, and they took to him like their idol took to fame-induced depression. They hauled Billy to captivity, needing a full harem to carry him through the camp. The wobbit did not put up a fight. He only asked for soap.
When they set him down in a makeshift tent, he updated his list of requests.
“I am Billy Bagboy, companion of Aaron Sorkinshield, and I wish to speak to your king.” The Elven Fangirls wondered how exactly this massive, doughy fellow could possibly be a companion of a Little Person. But some of the wobbit’s more charismatic fat globules reminded them of the Elvisking’s fat globules, so they took him to where the King held court. Bard the Batman was, thankfully, also there, because Billy was doubtful that the Elvisking could use his mouth to make words these days.
“What do you want?” asked Bard, in a tone so low that only nearby dolphins could hear.
“I am here to try to make peace.”
“That’s big talk from a little man,” Bard answered, in a booming bass that reset all of the cell phones in the room. The Elvisking gently gyrated his hips.
“Well, I mean it,” said Billy, instinctively lowering the pitch of his own voice.
The Elvisking gyrated faster, with more bravado, and in a way that implied the beginning of the end of a racially segregated society.
“Here,” said Billy, pulling out the Arkinstone. “Sorkinshield values this very much, and I’m sure he’d listen to you if you had it to bargain with.”
The Elvisking and Bard marveled at the magnificent gem, resplendent in its gritty authenticity and likable personality.
“Why would you do this?” asked Bard, looking at the night sky. The Elvisking played a blues-influenced chord progression on his acoustic guitar while puckering his lips.
Billy shrugged. He was simply ready for his YOLO to be over, even if he’d only do it once.
“I cannot thank you enough,” said Bard in a voice low and grim enough to cause hairline fractures in the teeth of everyone in the room. “But once is enough for now.”
“I really appreciate it, you know—” Billy started, but he turned around to find that Bard and the Elvisking had both disappeared, even though they were on a platform in the middle of an empty field. He kicked himself for having spoken to them facing the wrong direction in the first place and ventured off toward the shining light of the Humans’ capital.
Hours later, Billy arrived at the Coliseum of Representatives, just as Congress was being called into session. It was a marvelous building filled with peanut vendors and spilt beer.
Billy watched as Richard Nixon banged his gavel for forty-five consecutive minutes. Eventually, the Red team and the Blue team stopped yelling at each other and the last air horn was silenced.
“All right. The first order of business is peace with the Little People.” The air horns resumed, and a call-and-response of vuvuzelas began inside the stadium. It was not long before an elderly member of the Blue team had to be rushed out on a gurney and everyone settled down.
“We’ll open up the floor,” declared Nixon. The trapdoor built into the speaking floor swung wide open, revealing a goodly number of alligators. “I recognize the Congressman from East Ohiowa.” And so it began.
“Gentlemen, I’ll be bamboozled if we can’t at least talk peace with our Little People here.”
“Peace? With those small-bearded bumpkins?” chimed in a Red Pinnie. Yells came from all sides.
“Why are they so little?”
“What is this Arkinstone, anyhow?”
“To the gentleman from East Ohiowa, I say this: my people want peace of mind. They want a piece of the pie.”
“We need a pie that everyone can have a slice of.”
“An equal slice? Even Little People?”
“The size of the slice, my friends and colleagues, is immaterial to the matter at hand. What, pray tell, about the quality? My county, Thogam City, has the best pizza in all of Widdle Wearth, and I wouldn’t swap my own mother for any other slice.”
“Well if it’s a pizza pie, who gets a say in the toppings? I like mushroom, but maybe the gentleman from Mississouri don’t like mushroom. Maybe he wants Hawaiian.”
“Pepperoni is good.”
“Well, shoot. Let’s get pepperoni.”
“Okay, so maybe two pepperoni, two cheese. Is that enough?”
“Throw in one veggie, maybe?”
“No. Every time we order that, nobody winds up eating it. How about peppers and onions?”
“Fine. I’m dialing. Two cheese, two pepperoni, one peppers and onions.”
“Hold on. Do we want mozzarella sticks?”
“I love me some mozzarella sticks.”
“All right. Hi, is this Pizza Hovel? Yes, we’d like five pizzas: two cheese, two pepperoni, one peppers and onions. And an order of mozzarella sticks. And plates and napkins. Twenty-five minutes? Okay. Thanks.”
The Congressmen paused for a moment of silence. Then they went back to the difficult and slow work of hammering out a workable piece of legislation.
An hour later they had not even mentioned the peace treaty. Billy grabbed ten or so slices of pepperoni to go and sneaked back toward the Mountain with Zero Friends.
Suddenly from behind a rock, out wandered Dumbledalf.
“Look at you, Hairy. Hardly a boy, hardly a man.”
“I am fifty years old,” said Billy.III
“You have to be careful of Necromorts,” Dumbledalf warned him. “And also Filipinos.”
“All right, then,” said Billy, stepping away.
“Touch my head, boy,” Dumbledalf whispered. “Take my secrets.”
* * *
I This one’s long, so you can go ahead and skip the whole next page.
II If you are picturing the Little People of Snow White, know that you are doing a great job making images in your head while you read. Keep up the good work.
III I was shocked too.
XII
The Coolest Part!
The next day the wind shifted west, and we all know what that means.
Meanwhile, the lands below the Mountain with Zero Friends filled with forces upon forces, racking up more friend requests in a matter of hours than the mountain had ever known. Worried about appearing desperate, the mountain played it coy, leaving all requests pending, so nobody was quite sure of who was friends with whom.
Then Bain at last arrived, come to the aid of the Little People, brother in arms to Sorkinshield and cousin in genetics because of a drunken and regret-filled night Bain’s granduncle had with Sorkinshield’s oldest aunt.
Bard the Batman would not let Bain pass round the eastern bend; east was one of the four directions, and goodness knows you have to remember them all. Billy marched forth with Bard to speak with Bain to see if there could be a peace that might prevent the need for any sequels.
“From whence come you?” asked the Batman in his deep bass, grim as ever.
“I am Bain, son of Inane, son of Pain,” said Bain, son of Inane, son of Pain. He spoke grimly, with a pitch deep enough to ruin a baby’s whole day. “We are hastening to my kinsmen in the mountain, who have sent word of a casting call for a gritty thriller set on the stage of a sports news show. Why do you stand here as though you wish to kill me so?” It was the polite thing to say in such a situation, though it really meant, “Why do you stand here?”
“We stand here defending morality,” said the Batman, more grimly and deeply than ever before.
“Is that so?” said Bain, one-upping the Batman in the grim lowering of his voice.
“It is so,” said the Batman, going down the grimmest of octaves. Up by the mountain, Doc was having more aneurysms than usual.
“So?” reiterated Bain, flexing his grim vocal cords as wide as they could vibrate, struggling to utter the word.
“So,” the Batman echoed, grunting with grimness so low that none could be sure he had even said it. Dead birds began falling from the sky.
“Hhhgrh,” countered Bain, going grimmer and deeper than any in Widdle Wearth had ever gone before.
“Hrhhghh,” went the Batman, his voice cracking with a grimness so deep it set fire to most of the Little People’s hair.
And so it came to pass that neither could produce another audible sound. The two great leaders had no choice but to stare each other down with their tongues hanging out and their mouths open wide.
There was no getting around it. A fight was at hand—and at the YOLO’s climax! Due to the definition of the word “climax”!
Each side prepared their forces, making sure to give their warriors one final lesson on how to miss with all their arrows until the very last one.
Yet just as the CG effects were about to get nifty, a swirling darkness overcame the sky above.
“Halt!” cried Dumbledalf. “Brooms swarm the sky.”
Elves and Little People alike stopped in their tracks and watched with great confusion.
“Those are just bats,” said Bard the Batman, grimly relieved. “I was wondering where I’d left them. Alas! They bring word of a Moblin attack. They come upon wargis to possibly avenge the possible death of Tony Moblin.”
“Come, everyone!” said Dumbledalf. “A Wizarding Tournament! I am a wizard!” He laughed heartily, then grew incredibly sad. “Do come now, or we shall all die immediately.”
And so the Batman and Bain and Billy and everybody else I haven’t bothered to describe in proper detail gathered round, and hence were drawn the lines in the Battle of the Five Armies. It was the Moblins and the wargis on one side, and then also the Elves and the Little People and the Humans. Five-ish armies. Close enough.
And so at once all five forces charged forth into battle.
“Halt!” Dumbledalf cried, and all five forces promptly stopped.
“What is it now?” asked the Batman.
“We have company.”
