The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2025 Edition - Episode 24

"What are you two numbskulls doing lurking around my front garden?" hollered Wizard Mike, Mogey and Smush's next door neighbor.

"We're not lurking!" Mogey insisted.

"Loitering, maybe," Smush acknowledged. "Lingering, certainly. But not lurking."

"Whatever you're doing, why are you doing it on my walk?" Wizard Mike asked.

"We were hoping you might have some work for us," Mogey rejoined.

"We're ten pieces of silver short for admission to the new zoetrope show at the civic center," said Smush.

"They've got a zoetrope of a monkey eating a cupcake that'll blow your mind, supposedly," Mogey added. 

Wizard Mike regarded the pals thoughtfully. He muttered as if trying to convince himself of something, then leafed through his day planner.

"Alright," he said at last. "If you weed my sunflower patch, I shall pay you the sum of ten pieces of silver."

Mogey and Smush glanced at the sunflower patch, which appeared to have only a single weed growing in it. 

"Make that ten pieces of silver," Smush negotiated.

"Deal," replied Wizard Mike. 

The pals approached the sunflower patch.

"This'll be the easiest ten pieces of silver we've ever made," said Mogey, gripping the offending plant. He pulled and the weed came up easily, but its roots seemed to be longer than its aboveground parts. Mogey was standing now, weed in hand, but the roots still trailed down into the soil. He pulled and he pulled, dragging up yard after yard of roots, but still he had not reached the bottom.

"I probably should've mentioned," said Wizard Mike, striding over with his nose still in his day planner, "how that there is a Neverending Knotweed. It was planted - I suspect - by my mortal enemy, Warlock Greg. But do your best, boys, alright?"

Hours later, Mogey stood beside a coil of knotweed root stacked twelve feet tall. His hands were raw, his back ached, his Kiss the Cook t-shirt was filthy. 

"Fight through the pain, Moge-man!" Smush encouraged. "Surely we're almost there by now. Just imagine how cool it's going to be to watch that monkey eating that cupcake!"