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     Have you ever seen a pupa and gone, “Gosh, I wish it was human so we could go make babies”?  If yes, I suggest the old, biblical saying: “If the milkshake won’t come to Moe, Moe must go to the milkshake”…or something like that… Either way, you just go on and curl up in a large blanket and don’t come out until you’re a butterfly!  For those of you who don’t know what you’re missing…er…good job; you’ve succeeded where I – others have failed…*cough*

Not that any of that make a difference.

     Ernest was making a nice pot of tea to bathe in (he can’t drink very well through the cocoon!) when his kindly neighbour came in.  Her name was Miss Beatrice Crimshaw, a vegetarian cardinal who actively participated in the extreme sport of gossiping.  Miss Beatrice, with feathers as neatly in place as if she had been made in China, rapped smartly on Ernest’s cheery cherry door with her simple and functional walking cane; none of this fancy wood and scrollwork for her, thank you!
     It was with that thought in her head that Ernest opened the door and was immediately bombarded with outraged statements about the current fashions.
     “I mean you can almost see right up to their inner-most tail feathers!” burst Miss Beatrice, once again ignoring the fact that respectable animals, including herself, never wore clothes.
     Ernest just smiled…as much as a pupa with no visible face can.  It looked more like the top of his coon was stretching slightly and then violently shaking while it tried to hold its impossible position.
     “A day’s work for a fine superhero like me,” thought Ernest out loud, by accident.
     What with all their imagining, it’s hard for pupas to control their minds and bodily functions at the same time.  Please, don’t comment about the yellow stains; it’s a touchy topic.
     “Well now, Ernest,” cautioned Miss Beatrice in her “I-am-an-old-maid-therefore-I-know-more-about-everything-than-you-do” voice.  “I thought I told you to tone down on your imaginings…or did you forget about last Wednesday and the…yellow stain?”
     Ernest shook irritably and possibly with some discomfort; he knew he’d never live that one down.  Might Max the Magnanimously Magnificent would never… but maybe he should stop before he…well…you know…
     “Ah, so you’ve put on a nice pot of my rosehip tea,” chattered Miss Beatrice with satisfaction and total disregard of Ernest’s current, frantic state of mind.  “It’s good for bringing out the colour of your cheeks, so I supposed it might just work on that cocoon of yours.  It is dreadfully white.”
     Miss Beatrice, the queen of overly clean things to the point that they became heavenly objects and had to be bought off angels sometimes, had paid Ernest, who was very proud of his cocoon, a great compliment.  He forgave her enough to reveal that the chickadees down the street were having a wedding on the Big Fir that evening before politely sending her out.
     A gleam came into Miss Beatrice’s eye at the news.  “Well, it looks like today shall be a crash and bash after all,” she said with a wicked smile and maniacal laughter – cut off by a weird look/wiggle from Ernest.  There was nothing she loved more than wreaking havoc on chickadees.  Crows were also good game, but they don’t cheep and flap their tubby bodies about in panic like those “unfine”, feathered friends.
     And with that, Miss Beatrice Crimshaw stalked off with a perfect turn-up of beak and posture of tail feathers.
     “Oh, and you’ll never guess what has happened,” she called back while primly stalking away.  “Sir Callaghan has started yet another so-called fort.  I do believe he’s senile.”
     It had been six months since his arrival, and fortunately for Sir Callaghan, the inhabitants of Cronkey Cove put up very well with his eccentric and delusional ways.  Well, except for the enormous, bright yellow signs around his now seven rickety buildings, warning passers-by of the hazardous state of these condemned buildings, “signed Humphrey Dogoodall, Chief Forest Building Inspector.”
     Sir Callaghan hated Dogoodall with a vim not even closely matched by Billy the War Veteran, who still fought the Americans in his dreams and woke up screaming, “The red-coats are coming!  The red-coats are coming!” even though he was British.
     Ernest, being a model neighbour, decided to hop on down to Sir Callaghan’s collection of forts.  After he had finished his bath.
     Three hours later, Ernest the cape-wearing pupa entered into the world of Sir Callaghan.  It was a bright yellow world with a rotting, wooden core.  But, a couple of slightly-under-perfect buildings would not bring down Sir Callaghan!  Especially when they’re the first buildings constructed in the New World.
     Sir Callaghan did not devote all of his time to buildings forts.  Actually, he had mastered the amazing ability to create carvings with an uncanny similarity to the creature they were modelled after.  Really, the only person he regularly carved out of wood was Dogoodall.  And this was no common, paid job through which he created beautiful sculptures for which creatures paid to take them home, stuff them in their rooms and therefore set them to the tedious task of dust-collecting.  Oh no.  This was a creepy obsession.
     In fact, Ernest as only able to locate Sir Callaghan by following the sound of woodblocks being pounded together by a manic-depressive percussionist.  He came in just as his own miniature portrait-in-wood was poised to be smashed upon the melon-like cranium of the Chief Forest Building Inspector.  Ernest did not like this.  With a grunt and a swoosh Ernest was able to put himself between the two colliding pieces of tree.
     What will happen?!  Has Ernest arrived in time to stop Sir Callaghan, or will he and his woodblock be smashed/squashed into oblivion, leaving Dogoodall’s head untouched?!?!  Will I ever stop the improper mix of exclamation and question marks?!?!?
     Don’t look at me with those eyes.  I want your heart rate to be steady before you learn what happens.  It make shock you!  …Well, are you ready yet?  No answer?  You must still be out of breath.  We can wait longer… Ready?  Hmm… You seem to need some cod-liver oil…wait a second…yes, one more…Are you just breathless in anticipation?!  Well, now I’m flattered!  Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!  I hold the world at my fingertips… You very breath is suspended by the words from this pen (originally written).  Well, I’ve never been one to be power-hungry…although – FINE!  I can see when someone is on the verge of tears.  Besides, you’re turning blue.
     Well, you see, a series of unfortunate events occur before the verified outcome.  It begins with Ernest’s grunt and swoosh sounds.  Ernest makes sounds that are not of the sound wavelengths as those heard by humans.  However, they are just the right hertz to be heard by the newly discovered pigmy penguins.
     Suddenly, 1000 scientists 1000 miles away were wakened to the violent shrieks of 1000 pigmy penguins (they make most sounds at the normal level of human hearing, but their mating calls are much higher).  After 1000 days of trying to get 1000 pigmy penguins to mate using the expertise of 1000 scientists, one tiny pupa, 1000 miles away, beat them to it and threw them into a complete chaos of misunderstanding.
     Next, Ernest, being in a cocoon and therefore quite hindered when it comes to performing most functions which require limbs, didn’t exactly leap in the proper direction.  In fact, instead of going between the two blocks of wood, he jumped in the opposite direction.  The words he uttered during this caused even more havoc among the pigmy penguins.  So, instead of hitting wood, he hit a can of yellow paint left by the building inspectors who had gotten tired of bringing so many signs to Sir Callaghan’s property every week that they now built them there out of pieces of his collapsing buildings.  This can happened to go flying through the air, landing on a very sharp rock, and therefore releasing its contents upon a very surprised beaver and pair of sculptures.
     Sir Callaghan, the pompously ignorant beaver, to Ernest’s great relief stopped the Ernest Wood Block from hitting the Dogoodall Wood Block.  However, he did drop it on the ground where it split in twine.  Ernest, already a bit shaken from the pigmy penguin mating calls reverberating through his head and the paint explosion, fainted from over-exposure to scarring events.

THE END