Book One in the Descendants of the Dragon series
The
Mud Gullumpers
By
E. L. Purnell
With illustrations by Io Kovach
The Mud Gullumpers
Text copyright 2011 E. L. Purnell
Illustrations copyright 2011 Io Kovach
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections or illustrations from this book, please write to the author or illustrator.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Summary: Ryan’s crazy stories about creatures living in the neighborhood creek have entertained Bits for months, but once she discovers the creatures are real, and suffering, she has to help them escape, even though that means sending away her brother’s best friend.
In memory of
Aaron Hawkins
January 12, 1970 - September 3, 2004
Dedicated to brothers and sisters everywhere.
PLEASE NOTE: On some devices, this text will look better on a rotated screen.
Chapter 1
My brother was twelve when he disclosed,
in confidence, while quite composed,
of Mud Gullumpers down by the stream
who stole kids’ boots, and made them scream.
It was 6:32, and no one was speaking.
A banging back door tipped off someone was sneaking,
for that someone didn't remember the spring
on the back door was wound as tight as a string.
So when that spring snapped the back door shut,
thoroughly betrayed, my brother ‘fessed up.
"I'm late for dinner. Yes, I know it!
But the reason is plain. See my clothes? They show it!"
And one look indeed is all that it took.
He was cloaked head to toe in the grossest of gook.
He spoke with conviction over what he’d just triumphed.
How he’d save us from sure death, should it or they find us.
Then he squinted his eyes, while his hand slowly swirled,
and he revealed his concern for the fate of this world.
Mud-streaked blond hair crowned gray eyes filled with dread.
Each word hissed through white teeth much too large for his head.
But that awkward look flickered, as if on the verge
of revealing the handsome young man to emerge.
Physically on the cusp of young adulthood,
his mental agility had matured as it should.
Now his tales had grown from unbelievable stories
to detailed legends of fantastic glory.
But I, younger by a year or two,
was cynical in my review
of theories on the fate of men.
(Though I lapsed from reason now and then.)
For me, the world was black and white.
Things were either wrong or they were right.
And my brother’s tales of heroic reprieve
were way too far-fetched for me to believe.
Yet I was blond, just like my brother.
This shocked my freckled, redhead mother.
Strangers would ask if we were twins
when we were young and brown-berry skinned.
But as we got older, we grew worlds apart.
Ryan’s make-believe stories tugged hard at Mom’s heart,
and she told him he spent too much time in his dreams,
instead of connecting with other preteens.
As my father sat listening, his anger emerged,
not through his expression, nor any harsh words,
but through raps of his fingers on the kitchen table,
punctuating poor Ryan’s developing fable.
This latest tale, told to avoid trouble,
involved some kind of freak that attacked from the water.
Yet whatever it was (or they were) I can't say.
For a distraction distracted me in the most awful way.
Behind Mom and Dad, prancing quite cavalierly,
(my peripheral vision detected it clearly),
I saw something lunge and smear across the floor.
All that lunging and smearing was hard to ignore,
especially when you’re a curious kid
-you just have to look! So that’s just what I did.
It froze near our dog’s dish, its eyes all-askew,
a glistening, slimy, quivering statue.
Its eyes cocked to the left, and then winced to the right,
as it searched desperately for a path to take flight.
When it found one, it raced away, leaving a trail
of sludge-smeared floor tiles to the darkened back stairs.
But there wasn’t just one, I’m sorry to say.
I saw several more deftly dashing away,
while my parents still focused on my brother’s face,
spinning stories as arachnids link intricate lace.
My knitted brow softened, my cheeks slowly relaxed,
as my brain pieced together each event and new fact
that had just interrupted our Friday night meal.
What I realized was spooky and oddly surreal:
The mud footprints my brother had most liberally placed,
up the stairway, ‘round the back door, in any free space,
had started to move, had started to congress,
had started to tug at little Gracie’s white dress!
But Grace didn’t notice, for she was just four.
Perched on telephone books, her dress hem kissed the floor
as she ate her food slowly, throughout Ryan’s tirade,
contentedly slurping her pink lemonade.
Her curly brown locks kept on tickling her nose.
She swiped at them aimlessly, with faint-hearted blows,
until finally Samantha tucked them behind her ears,
empathetic and wise beyond her six years.
Sam was in first grade and looked out for Grace.
Long, mousy hair curtains framed her small face.
She showed scant emotion, tending to her sis.
So far, only I saw that things were amiss.
But tiny Sam had one most curious habit.
A peek under the table would quickly reveal it:
her left foot hung down in a sock badly stained,
while her right foot was snug in a scuffed Mary Jane.
As of late, when Sam played, she would lose her left shoe.
Several pairs later, mother had not a clue.
A closet full of right shoes, but no matching lefts!
It’s highly unlikely she’s a victim of theft.
But this habit was costly, and my folks acted stressed
every morning when they told that wee girl to get dressed.
With each thrust of his finger, each claim of his innocence,
one more wet, stinky gob took its lying-boy-given-chance
to fly toward the counter, to head under the table,
to spread ‘cross the room, to stick wherever it was able!
That mud kept on moving. It scooted up walls,
and clung to the dishwasher like fresh, moist spitballs.
Dodging my dad’s feet and their impatient beat,
mud slid under the back door as flat as a sheet.
Brother loudly proclaimed that Washington Falls,
known for good schools and shopping malls,
would soon be known for the muddy pit <
br />
that concealed Mud Gullumpers deep inside it.
Flamboyant, yet stern, his heroics most certain,
he gestured with pronouncements that flung mud on the curtain.
Greta lay near the sink. Her ears rose in surprise
as each gob of gook fled, flying fast past her eyes.
Then that dog snapped awake from her full-belly slumber,
briskly shaking her head once to disencumber
her keen senses away from the world of her dreams
to perceive this engaging and frightening new scene.
Had my mother or father been in a good mood,
they'd have noticed the odd little guests that I viewed!
But my father’s brow furrowed as he heard Ryan deliver
a tall tale so scary that each word made me shiver.
Ryan warned that the things in the dead-end creek
were in fact slimy, fetid, space alien freaks.
And any kid dumb enough to approach their dark lair
had better believe in the power of prayer.
For underneath that calm surface of warm water and frog belly
-waited sinister incarnate! Waited monster! Waited smelly!
If that kid, so determined to make his way across,
might step on some stones or some green fishy moss,
or perchance he should slip and step into their sludge,
then his boots, snared so tightly, would no longer budge.
And no matter how hard that child strained, tugged or yanked,
the Mud Gullumpers pulled harder and the boots slowly sank
‘til the child screamed in fear, and by clinging to rocks,
freed his feet and ran home in his wet, soiled socks.
My dad rolled his eyes - rest his fork on his plate.
But we girls stared in rapture, with our pink mouths agape.
We knew that mud’s deep by the creek where we stroll,
but we’d never imagined it would swallow us whole!
My mother served second helpings of the veggies,
while questioning Sam in a voice that was edgy,
“Is that where I should go to find all of your shoes?
I could save a few bucks plucking them from the ooze.”
Sam smiled, lips parted as wide as was able,
prompting Mom to quip, “No ‘see’-food at the table.”
"But I wasn’t there! I had nothing to do with it!
Playing in the creek?” Ryan gasped, “I'm through with it!
I was minding my own business! I wasn't even near the mud!
I was gathering apples when they attacked in cold-blood!"
Well, that last part got to me, and I couldn’t deny
that a part of me wondered if this was really a lie.
With the mud all a-scattering wherever he flicked ‘em,
maybe he wasn’t a goof, but instead, a victim!
Now he thinks he escaped from those monsters back there,
and he’s telling this tale totally unaware
that when he returned muddy from the place where he roamed,
he actually brought the dang Mud Gullumpers home!
Then some black stinky gook, as of yet undiscovered,
formed a small lump and headed straight for the cupboard!
Our dog Greta went nuts! She sat up and she howled!
Then she lunged toward the cupboard, and baring fangs, growled.
“Throw her out of the house!” my dad yelled in frustration.
I leapt out of my chair with great trepidation,
because if they attacked Ryan (which is just what he claimed),
then they may have larger battle plans all arranged.
And if that is the case, then all this mud that I see
may in fact be a Mud Gullumper infantry.
And if that is true, then things really looked dire.
We’d need a great plan to escape this quagmire.
Someone needs to confront this imminent threat!
Even if that means getting all muddy and wet.
“Here girl!” I beckoned, walking to the back door.
“Greta, come!” I grew angry, summoning her once more.
My sisters hopped up, before Dad again hollered.
Gracie pushed Greta’s rump. Samantha pulled on her collar.
Greta whined and she barked as we flung her outside.
We shut the door quickly, and then turning wide-eyed,
we saw mud racing toward us at the greatest of speed.
We were trapped in a frightening Mud Gullumper stampede!
“What the hay?” muttered Sam, tracking with puzzled eyes.
Little Gracie yelped, “BUGS!” stiffening with surprise.
We all huddled together at the base of the stairs,
while my brother continued his defense with great flair.
“I high-tailed it out of there!” We heard Ryan shriek.
Our mouths hung wide open, but we just couldn’t speak.
My open eyes dried, but with mud looming near,
I just couldn’t risk blinking for the sake of a tear.
My sisters and I saw but one place to flee.
We fended off mud tracks that forced us three
to walk up the stairs backward to the dark second floor,
and we realized quite quickly as we rounded the door,
the situation had placed us near books thankfully.
We began whomping gooks with the biggest books we could free.
We whacked them and thwacked them with all of our might.
The mud squished like a pancake if you hit it just right.
Then it snapped in two pieces like stretched, old bubble gum,
and two darted away, where before there was one.
“Stop the whacking!” I yelled. “To the bathroom! Retreat!”
We sprinted to the bathroom just as fast as our feet
could carry our bodies all the way down the hall.
Grace tripped on the runner, but avoided a fall.
We ran in the bathroom and turned on a light.
Then we slammed the door shut, sealing it really tight.
Sam closed the windows. I threw towels on the floor,
and jammed them in any gaps under the door.
Grace wadded some tissue and plugged the keyhole,
standing up on the seat of our pink toilet bowl.
We successfully plugged every hole, crack, and cranny.
Then Grace stood up triumphant –with gook on her fanny!
I warned, “Don’t be scared Gracie; there’s more whacking to do.
Some gook snuck in here slyly by clinging to you!”
So I picked up a book and stepped forward to beat her.
She jumped off the toilet and backed toward the heater.
And that’s when we heard a most peculiar sound.
The gook dried from the heat, and fell “clink” to the ground.
We all circled in closer as it lay on the floor steaming.
The house was quieter since we three stopped our screaming.
Sam poked it gently with a pencil she found,
but the gook just lay hard and still on the warm ground.
“It’s just mud,” Sam crooned calmly in a quizzical tone.
“Don’t like bugs,” Gracie scowled in a faint whimpered groan.
“This gook Ryan brought home is some very odd stuff!
But it needs to stay moist!” I claimed, acting real tough.
“We have found out its weakness, so we’re one step ahead.
Now let’s go help the others. Gosh, I hope they’re not dead!”
We opened the window to the fire escape
and tossed out that hardened amorphous shape
while we snuck down the ladder and ran to the back door.
We went through; the door banged, as it had done before.
“Now what?” Dad groaned loudly, interrupting my brother,
who was steadfast in his attempt to win him over.
“That’s enough!” yelled my father, “now just sit down and eat!”
“Wash your hands,” urged my mother. “Girls, please take your seats.”
Grace clung to me tightly as our eyes scanned the room
looking for gobs of gook or an impending doom.
But the kitchen was tidy.
“Huh!” my brother exclaimed,
“I’m cleaner than I thought! That’s very strange.”
And he was cleaner now than when he first came in,
interrupting our dinner, with mud on his chin.
Now all that remained was a speck on his nose
and some dried, light brown smears on his arms and his clothes.
He walked to the sink with a smile and a shrug.
Having exhausted my father, he was looking quite smug.
At the sink, he saw mud crusted on his ring finger.
He splashed it with water, and he let his gaze linger
long enough to witness the dried gook on his nail
moisten up, jump right off, and leave without a trail.
His hand held up high, spread in front of his face,
hid the moon through the window I’d seen from my place.
He stared at his hand, weeping with water drips,
and the moon made light shine from his fingertips.
My brother’s back stiffened as he stood near the sink.
So I knew he’d seen something that made him rethink
what he thought he had conquered down there by the brook,
but he just came to the table with a complacent look.
My sisters and I swiftly snuck in our chairs.
My eyes fixed on my brother with a determined stare,
as I tried hard to tell him with telepathy
that I knew of the gook (and so did Gracie.)
But he just sat, looking down, eating buttery peas.
One by one, he spooned them slowly up to his teeth,
and he gingerly bit one ‘til the soft inside squished out.
Then he curled up his lips and sucked it into his mouth.
And he did it again and again –how he ate!