The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 516

"Silence is paramount," Mogey whispered to Smush as they crept along. "Even the slightest noise could alert the enemy to our presence."

He was right, of course, for Mogey and Smush were en route to steal one of Missus Abernathy's crumble top mincemeat pies. The mission was more difficult than it might seem - Missus Abernathy was in her eighties and blinder than a mole baby, but she was known to fire her crossbow out the window without warning if she suspected pie thieves were about.

Smush nodded seriously and the pals scampered through Missus Abernathy's back garden, only stopping once they were crouched below the windowsill where several pies sat cooling.

Smush gave Mogey the previously agreed-upon hand signal (rock horns) and Mogey got to his feet and quickly removed the crumble top mincemeat pie from the windowsill. He and Smush had begun to creep stealthily away, when Mogey stepped on a stray ostrich egg that had rolled into the yard. The egg issued a loud crack, followed by an even louder splat, and almost instantly, Missus Abernathy was at the window with the crossbow at her shoulder.

"Who goes there?" Missus Abernathy demanded, cocking her head in the direction of the now-frozen Mogey and Smush. They could see hundreds of tiny pies with X's through them carved into the handle of the crossbow - one for every pie thief she had iced. "I'll tan your hides and put you in my next pie, I say!" she shouted.

Missus Abernathy felt around the windowsill with her spare hand, apparently assuming that the pie thieves had gone.

"Ah well, they've only gotten the crumble top mincemeat," she muttered. "Thank goodness they didn't take my strawberry-gooseberry. That's the true winner of the bunch."

As Missus Abernathy wandered away from the window, Mogey and Smush exchanged a significant look. They knew that either the strawberry-gooseberry pie would be theirs, or they'd get a crossbow quarrel to the hip flexer trying. And no pie ever tasted so good as that strawberry-gooseberry one did when Mogey and Smush finally devoured it in the waiting room outside Saint Ignacious Memorial Crossbow Wound Treatment Center.