The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 584

Mogey and Smush huddled together inside their reinforced oaken barrel as it floated inexorably toward Hugeness Falls. No one had ever successfully made it over Hugeness Falls in a barrel, but then, no one had ever attempted to go over Hugeness Falls in a barrel.

"Say Mogey," Smush said. "Quick question: Why are we doing this?"

"You mean why are we about to go over an impossibly high waterfall in a barrel?" Mogey asked.

"Indeed."

"Isn't it obvious?" Mogey said. "There's a cafe at the bottom of Hugeness Falls that makes the best root beer floats. I figured this would be the quickest way down there."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 583

"When's the last time you scraped the frost off the chicken coop?" Smush asked Mogey one cold morning.

"Can't say I've done that since Thursday last," Mogey replied absentmindedly.

"What?" Smush exclaimed. "But you know full well that if the frost gets too thick, that chicken coop turns into a mighty frost monster with chickens for a heart and chickens for a liver."

"Darn it!" Mogey said. "I knew I'd been forgetting something."

The two pals threw on their overcoats and rushed out to the chicken coop, where they breathed a momentary sigh of relief. There was a hefty layer of frost on the windward side, but it didn't appear that a frost monster had formed yet. At that moment however, an enormous snowy head with a bulbous nose and gloomy eyes rose from the coop.

"Hullo," the frost monster said slowly, "I wuz just wundering if yew might gave me a sput of chiken feed?"

"AGGGHHHH! Frost monster!" Mogey shouted as the two pals turned tail and ran for the hills.

"Oh," the frost monster rejoined sadly, "I guess naught."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 582

A wily old fox named Frankie O'Xylophone broke into Mogey and Smush's hen house more than a dozen times before they finally caught him. Mogey and Smush knew they would have to use any means necessary to find out how Frankie had been sneaking in if they were to keep their eggs safe in the future.

"Alright, O'Xylophone," Smush said. "Spill the beans. How do you do it? A loose floorboard?"

"No," Frankie replied. He was manacled to a spinny chair beneath a hot white light. "I usually just walk in through the front door."

"Nonsense!" Smush cried. "Only an imbecile would believe such a story. Is it the roof you come through?"

"Seriously, I just waltz right in through the front door," Frankie repeated, swishing his bright red tail. "It's not like you have it guarded or anything."

"I can see we'll need to resort to more desperate measures. Mogey, fetch my whips!"

"Yes, sir," Mogey responded. He began to scurry away but then abruptly changed directions and scurried back. "Just to be clear, you want your licorice whips, correct?"

"Of course," Smush said. "And be sure to bring the black ones. We're going for the kind of heavy-duty torture red licorice just can't provide."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 581

"Leopold!" Smush announced suddenly one afternoon as he and Mogey were sippin' on some eggnog.

"Leopold?" Mogey asked.

"Leopold," Smush confirmed.

"L-L-Leopold," Mogey muttered, as if the name felt funny in his mouth.

"Leopooooooooooooooooold," Smush sang.

For several moments there was silence except for the omnipresent rumbling of their respective tumblies.

"Are you quite sure?" Mogey asked finally.

"Of course I'm sure," Smush replied. "The troll who lives beneath Blubberburp Bridge is named Leopold. Either that or Carlos - you know I get all those Russian names confused."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 580

"Mogey," Smush said as he squeezed the last drops of pig milk from the udder of his prize milking pig, Wolfgang, "it's high time we had a vacation. What say we take a journey over the Fangtooth Mountains to Loskiland?"

"Meh," Mogey replied, "I'm not a big fan of Loskiland. The laws are just too strict in that country."

"How so?" Smush inquired as he gave Wolfgang a pat on the head and sent her on her way.

"Did you know you can't even steal in Loskiland?"

"Mogey, you can't steal here either."

"Well not from your loved ones, no, but in Loskiland you can't even steal from complete strangers," Mogey said. "I mean, the nerve of those Loskilanders. Honestly."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 579

"I think it's finally time," Mogey said one day, "for me to get a haircut."

"Thank heavens," Smush replied, breathing a sigh of relief. "Waist-length dreadlocks really do not suit you."

"What style do you think I should go with?"

"Well, a mullet has always done you proud in the past...."

"True, a mullet is a good fit with my personality," Mogey acknowledged, "but I want something more professional this time around. I'm debating between a mohawk and a head-manchu. That's like a fu-manchu on top of--"

"I know what a head-manchu is," Smush muttered before chugging three quarters of a glass of buttermilk. "Do I look like a child to you?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 578

Mogey and Smush had been farmsitting Farmer Bananagram's expansive lands and barns for over a week. Smush had been hesitant about the responsibilities at first, but Mogey had insisted and eventually won him over. "It'll be the easiest $300 we ever made," he had said. "It's the dog days of summer: There's scarcely anything to be done on a farm this time of year."

Finally the last day of their duty rolled around, and the pals woke up late.

"Maybe we should do a bit of work today, just for show" Mogey said as he stumbled blearily upon Smush in Farmer Bananagram's well stocked pantry. "I did tell the farmer we would harvest 1,000 acres of stinkbarley before he came back, but that shouldn't take long."

"What?" Smush demanded, nearly dropping a jar of stewed tomatoes.

"Oh, wait a moment," Mogey said, pulling a crumpled sheet of paper from his overalls pocket, "that's not right."

"Phew, you gave me quite a scare there. Farmer Bananagram is known to be pretty liberal with his riding crop when his temper is up."

"Yes, it's hectares, not acres," Mogey replied. "1,000 hectares of stinkbarley. We could do that by, when? 2:30 this afternoon? A hectare is about half a stalk of barley, right?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 577

"Okie-dokie," Mogey announced, lugging a heavy carpet bag down the stairs with a bump-bump-bump. "I'm all packed and ready to go! When do we leave?"

"Leave?" Smush asked. "For where?"

"The Isle of Paradise, where the ladies all know your name and the lily pads are made of pancakes."

"I'm not going to the Isle of Paradise," Smush replied. "Are you going to the Isle of Paradise?"

"I thought you said you knew a guy who had two free tickets to the Isle of Paradise aboard the steamship Zanzibarian Fool," Mogey said, trying not to sound too crestfallen.

"Nope, I never said that."

"Oh. It was just a classic Mogey and Smush miscommunication, I guess," said Mogey. And he sadly dragged his carpet bag upstairs to unpack a half gallon of sunblock, a plastic sandcastle mold, a pair of scratch-and-sniff books, and three pounds of knockwurst.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 576

One day, Mogey and Smush decided to settle it once and for all: Which one of them could hold his breath the longest? The debate over which of them had the more legendary lung capacity had been so hotly contested over the years that it had resulted in two eye gougings, seven permanently scarring Indian sunburns, and, memorably, a night spent in jail on charges of inciting a one-man riot.

The referee for the epic breath-holding contest was Mogey's and Smush's mutual friend Tortoise Richard, and he started it in the usual way (by slapping his tail against the back of his shell). What followed were thirty of the quietest seconds of Mogey's and Smush's lifetimes.

"Hold it!" Mogey burst out suddenly, less than a minute in. "He's cheating, ref! He's not holding his breath at all, he's just puffing his cheeks out!"

"That's a lie!" Smush retorted. "And anyway, you've been cheating too. I've seen you sneak at least three sips of slurpee over the course of this contest."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"It's a physical impossibility to hold you breath and drink a slurpee at the same time. Even the most childish child knows that."

"We'll have to get a judges ruling on this," Mogey said. "Tortoise Richard? Hey, where'd he go?"

But Tortoise Richard couldn't hear Mogey, for he had discovered a pail of cabbages outside a nearby Burger King that required his immediate attention.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 575

"Smush! Smush!" Mogey exclaimed, charging into his pal's study in a state that can only be described as a kerfuffle. "I think I've got it: The next great invention for all mankind!"

"Go on," Smush replied, spinning his chair around in a slightly evil manner.

"I call it it 'the roly-poly,'" Mogey said. "It's a circular device that you could attach to a heavy object, allowing you to move the object with only a tiny fraction of the force it would take to drag it."

"That sounds like a wheel."

"A what now?"

"A wheel," Smush repeated. "We've got four of them on our wagon."

"Don't tell me someone beat me to the punch!" Mogey cried. "It was that Willard Otterbottom, wasn't it?"

"What are you talking about, Mogey? Wheels have existed for thousands of years."

"Curse you, Otterbottom," Mogey muttered. "Always looking at my notebooks. One of these days I'll see that you receive the harshest punishment the patent office has to offer. Yes, it shall be mandatory ostracism from your inventor peer group for you!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 574

"Do you think anything at Patty's will require a sharp knife to eat?" Mogey asked Smush as the two pals scrambled about the house, getting ready for their favorite dinner of the year: 2-for-1 Night at Patty's Pantry & All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.

"I don't think so," Smush replied. "Why do you ask?"

"I want to make sure I bring the right tools for the job, don't I?"

"Hold on," Smush persisted. "You're bringing your own utensils to Patty's Pantry now? Why?"

"Well the utensils they give you are just so small," Mogey said, hefting an enormous fork and spoon intended for serving salads. "The only way to get your money's worth is to bring a real man's silverware. You don't think I'll need a spork as well, do you?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 573

"Aaaaghhhh!" Mogey screamed as he scrambled up the cellar stairs.

"What is it this time?" Smush said, lowering his spectacles in the most dastardly manner possible.

"There's a monstrous monster in the basement! He's out to butter our ears and eat us with rye toast!"

"Calm down, lad, calm down. We'll go down to the cellar together and I'll show you there's no monster."

Mogey and Smush descended the creaky stairs together (Mogey much more tentatively than Smush). They rounded the stacks of salt pork barrels and walked past the rows of pickled goods of all kinds.

"There!" Mogey whispered sharply, pointing at the opposite wall. "See him?"

"My goodness, Mogey, you might actually be right this time!" Smush replied. The figure - a shadow in the candlelight - took up most of the wall. It was a four-legged beast whose cruel snout seemed to be sniffing the air to pick up their scents. A razor-sharp horn atop its head looked powerful enough to gore a full-grown blue whale. Mogey and Smush clutched each other in mortal terror.

Just as they were about to scream like little girls and run for cover, Mogey and Smush's prize pig Buttercup trotted out from the shadows, a party hat from her birthday celebration the night before still strapped to her head.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 572

One evening, Mogey and Smush were returning home from La Fiesta di Hombre Murcielago when they encountered a bear standing in the middle of the road.

"Who goes there?" said the bear. "Give me all the honey you've got."

"Whoa!" Mogey exclaimed. "A talking bear!"

"Yes, yes," the bear replied, "it's very unusual, I know. Just give me the honey, will you?"

"Can you do any accents?" Smush asked.

"For goodness sakes!" the bear cried. "If I do an accent will you please, please give me your honey?"

"Sure," Smush replied. The bear then delivered the soliloquy from Hamlet in a perfect Austrian accent, complete with menacing scowl.

"Now where's my honey?" he demanded.

"We haven't got any," Mogey answered. "But I do have some leftover Thai lettuce wraps around here somewhere if you'd like those."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 571

"What are you wearing for pajamas these days, Smush?" Mogey asked one day while he was eating teddy grahams, a food that always put him in a philosophical mood.

"During these winter months I usually wear my flannel nightshirt," Smush replied. "And on particularly cold nights I sometimes throw on one of the sheepskin adult diapers Crazy Aunt Nellie gave us last Christmas. What about you?"

"I'm sort of in transition. I used to always wear matching pajamas, but I've been experimenting with a new invention I call 'Mogeywear.' It's like a connected pajama bottom and top with no waistband, so you're freedom of movement is incredible!"

"That's already been invented, Mogey," Smush interjected. "They're called footy pajamas."

"Oh there are no feet on Mogeywear," Mogey replied with just a teensy bit of contempt in his voice. "I keep my feet bare when I go to bed, just in case I have to roundhouse kick an intruder without giving him a black eye."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 570

On the evening of The Great Debate, Mogey and Smush led the St. Zonko School for Wild Boys debate team into the ancient arguing grounds. The pals had spent the last fortnight designing uniforms for the St. Zonko team: They'd sewn spangles and stitched patches, they'd knitted socks and crocheted scarves, they'd darned seams and tatted fancy collars.

Now that it was showtime, Mogey and Smush strode into the arguing grounds with a confidence they'd never felt before, and they could see in their opponents' eyes that the uniforms were intimidating. Finally it came time for St. Zonko's first debate of the tournament. The opposing team launched unsteadily into their opening statement, clearly rattled by the flash and pizzazz of Mogey and Smush's new uniforms.

Then the moderator turned to the St. Zonko's team. For a few moments the silence was broken only by throat clearing and a small rogue belch, as Mogey and Smush waited for someone on their team to say something.

"Smush," Mogey whispered, "I'm beginning to think maybe we should have spent a little less time on our uniforms and a little more time practicing our debating skills."

"Nah," Smush replied quietly, "you can't underestimate the value of a first impression. And right now St. Zonko's is stylin'."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 569

"So, Mogey," Smush said one day as the two pals sat around a heaping plate of ebelskivers, "have you made any New Year's resolutions?"

"Indeed I have," Mogey replied. "I've resolved to add an additional apricot bear claw to my daily doughnut regimen."

"I see, and how many doughnuts does that take you up to on a typical day? Six? Seven?"

"It's actually a nice round gentleman's ten."

"Ah," said Smush. "You know, Mogey, usually a New Year's resolution is something constructive, like getting healthy, or, say, being kinder to others."

"Well that's just what I'm doing," Mogey responded. "The Moge-man is a whole lot nicer to his neighbors with an extra apricot bear claw in his belly. I'll be so darn kind, people might actually stop shrieking when I pass them on the sidewalk."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 568

"Do you think you could ever live in a rain forest?" Mogey asked Smush as the two pals stared out the kitchen window at a bleak, stormy November morning.

"Not on your life," Smush replied.

"Why's that? Is it the bugs?"

"No sir, the bugs don't other me in the slightest."

"The heat, then?"

"Uh-uh," Smush said. "Smush loves him some hot, humid weather."

"Well what is it?" Mogey inquired. "Why wouldn't you live in a rain forest?"

"Two reasons," Smush replied. "First, I'm deathly afraid of leaches. Second, monkeys. Those wise guys are always giving you a hard time. It's like, hey, monkey, if you're going to make a funny face at me, why don't you come down here where I can hit you with my monkey beating stick?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 567

"You know something, Smush? I'm thinking about taking on the horn," Mogey announced one day as the two pals were viewing an amateur game of skittles at the YMCA.

"Good for you!" Smush replied. "Which horn is that? The french horn?"

"Of course not."

"The trumpet, then?"

"No."

"Perhaps the flugelhorn?"

"Um, no, Smush, I'm talking about the XXXL creme horn at Papa Bombasta's House of Absurdly Oversized Pastries," said Mogey, rolling his eyes dramatically. "Sheesh, it's like you've never spoken to me before."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 566

When Grandma Mulligan moved down to Crillking County, Mogey and Smush missed her warm smile, her potato soup, and her blazin' hot hip hop stylings, in that order. One winter's eve when they missed Grandma Mulligan particularly terribly, Mogey and Smush decided to try their hands at making her world famous potato soup.

"Are all the ingredients assembled?" Smush asked.

"Yessiree," Mogey replied.

"Alright then, hand me a potato." Mogey handed him one. "Hang on a second," Smush said. "This isn't a potato at all. It's a Mr. Potato Head doll."

"So?"

"We need real potatoes to make potato soup."

"I've had enough of this talk of real potatoes and fake potatoes," Mogey said sternly. "Grandma Mulligan never held with potato racism and I won't either!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 565

One morning Mogey was enjoying a heaping bowl of bran clusters when he looked up to see Smush descending the stairs. His pal looked remarkably different: A long grey beard hung from Smush's chin and despite leaning heavily on a cane, he was limping along at a snail's pace, his back hunched awkwardly.

"Good heavens, Smush!" Mogey exclaimed. "What has happened? Have I gone to bed and woken up many years later like Rip van Stiltskin?"

"Of course you haven't, dunderhead," Smush replied. "And it's Rumplewinkle, not Rip van Stiltskin."

"But, but you're an old man!"

"I most certainly am not! This is just my napping beard," Smush rejoined, pulling off the false grey whiskers. "And I'm only using this cane because you roller skated over my foot yesterday. I told you the inside of that elevator wasn't a roller derby arena, but did you listen to me? No you did not."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 564

"How would you like to go caroling today, Mogey?" Smush asked one morning very near Christmas.

"Hmm, I must say I'm intrigued," Mogey replied. "Tell me more about this caroling."

"We'll go from door to door, singing our favorite Christmas songs and bringing cheer to our friends and neighbors."

"And what would we get in return?" Mogey asked.

"You don't get anything in return," Smush said. "It's just a nice thing to do."

"Fiddlesticks! I thought you mentioned something about figgy puddings?"

"I said nothing of the sort."

"Well I suppose I could bring my own figgy puddings," Mogey said thoughtfully. "Let's do it. But you had better be prepared to carry the second verse of Good King Wenceslas: That first verse always makes me hungry, so I'll probably have my mouth full."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 563

Of all the magnificent and monstrous creatures in the land, the most feared was the mighty quadropus. He was a squid-like sea-dwelling beast with four tentacles long enough to crush an entire truckload of snack cakes into one tiny nugget of deliciousness. The quadropus was also know for his keen fashion eye: He had a tendency to gobble up anyone he thought was dressed distastefully.

One fine morning, Mogey and Smush were out for a refreshing swim in Burntbottom Bay when suddenly the might quadropus rose up before them.

"Who goes there?" the quadropus demanded in his booming voice.

"Tis just us," Mogey replied. "Mogey and Smush."

"Ah," said the quadropus. "I thought you may have been the snack cake delivery man."

"While we're in your presence, oh great quadropus," Smush interjected, "would you mind telling us what you think of our fashion senses?" The quadropus gazed at them with an appraising eye.

"Poor, but not the worst I've seen. Your choice of striped socks with plaid swim trunks was a bit misguided, as was, come to think of it, your choice to wear socks of any kind whilst swimming."

An awkward silence fell for a moment, as Mogey and Smush gazed bashfully down into the water at their stockinged feet.

"Ohhhh, I get it," Mogey said suddenly. "It's like 'octopus,' but he has four legs instead of eight!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 562

"What shall we do to get girls to dance with us?" Mogey asked one lovely summer's eve as he and Smush were en route to the big hoedown.

"It is a mystery that has plagued scholars for centuries and centuries," Smush replied. "Although I hear girls love tough guys - can you do anything tough?"

"I can demonstrate a few tai chi moves. Do you think that would work?"

"I'm not so sure... tai chi doesn't seem like something tough guys would do."

"Balderdash," Mogey retorted. "It's a martial art!"

"What about scars?" Smush suggested. "Have you got any scars to show off how tough you are?"

"That I do!" Mogey said excitedly. "See the little red spot where that soft-shell crab pinched me last week? If that doesn't make me look like a hard man, nothing will."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 561

One morning, Mogey returned home from working the late shift at the savory cracker factory to find a statue in the front garden. The statue was a full-size sloth carved out of brilliant white stone, and the sculptor had taken extra care to make it exceptionally lifelike.

"Nice statue," Mogey told Smush as he went inside and wearily set down his lunch, extra lunch, and luncho fantastico (Spanish for "3rd lunch") pails.

"What statue is that?" Smush asked, looking up from his copy of Prune & Dried Fruit Aficionado.

"The big sloth statue out front," Mogey replied.

"No! No! No!" Smush cried, tossing aside his magazine and dashing out the front door. "That crafty rascal."

Mogey followed his pal outside to discover that the sloth statue was gone. "I don't understand," he said. "What happened?"

"It wasn't a statue at all," Smush replied. "It was an actual sloth covered in flour. You see, Mogey, that critter has taken to rolling around our flour bin. He likes how it feels on his fur, but then our bread smells like sloth for the next week. When you saw him in the front garden, he was actually fleeing the scene of the crime very, very slowly."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 560

"He had a shiny bald head," Mogey explained to the police sketch artist. "And if you ask me he looked to be a few apples short of an apple cake."

"Ok," the sketch artist replied. "What about his height?"

"He was probably, what, two-foot-two or two-foot-four?" Smush answered.

"And what sort of clothes was he wearing?"

"I'm not sure," Smush said. "It was hard to see anything around the armor-like shell he had on his back."

"It sounds like this guy looked exactly like a turtle," said the sketch artist. "What did he do, again?"

"He was a turtle," Mogey replied. "And he ate up half the cabbages in our garden."