The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

        We all gaped dumbly at Stink's pipe and the bubbling murk surrounding it. Finally, I broke the silence.
        "I'll get the pipe," I told them. I found two long logs and used them to span the small but deadly pool. Then I had the boys stand on the ends of the logs and I edged out over the murk, sitting on one log while I leaned over and balanced with my feet on the other. The logs provided access to the pipe, which thrust upward from the murk in between them. I finally inched on out to the corncob pipe and tried to pull it up from the fetid fen. It wouldn't budge. I pulled harder on it, obtaining similar results.
        Seeing that I was getting nowhere, I put a foot on each log and stood up. Bending over and siezing the ugly corncob, I exerted all of my might into one final effort to retrieve the olid momento.
        But now, before my horrified eyes, a huge hump appeared in the quicksand. A strange sucking noise accompanied this new development.
        Suddenly, the pipe began to rise from the muck, accompanied by a loud glurp. But what we saw shocked and amazed us.
        Attached to the stem of the pipe, inhaling and exhaling noisily, was a swampish nightmare come to life. It was a huge muddy lump, malformed and misshapened, dragging strands of slime in its wake.
        As the form burst loose from the quicksand, assuming the shape of a man, its eyes opened wide, and it seized me in a steely grip.
        "YEEAGH!!!" I shrieked in utter panic, slipping and falling backwards into the murk. Holding on for dear life, the muddy ghoul collapsed with me into the quicksand. As I desperately fought the mud critter and floundered in the deadly mire, I reached toward the bank and latched onto a sturdy root that jutted out over the pool.
        Grabbing the root with both hands, I pulled myself onto the shore, dragging the foul carcass of my new friend behind me. Needless to say, I was plumb tuckered out from all of the excitement.
        "Hey, fellas," I weakly cried, but when I looked around the clearing they were all gone except Zeb.
        "Dig it, baby," rapped Zeb, "this human mud-pie smells like a septic tank sludge puppy."
        "Is that you, Stink?" I asked the mud critter.
        "I reckon so," he said, "and you saved my life."
        I guess that I should add that I never got a ticker-tape parade for this feat. But anyway, all of us Hootenannies were glad to have our old pal back alive, or at least what most folks would call alive. He was a real stinker, but he was our stinker.
        The boys mosied back now acting mighty brave-like and casual, while Stinky told us about his travail there in the muck. It turned out that he had been buried there for hours. We all had a good laugh or two as we heard the story, and then Egghead spoke up.
        "Since almost all of us have by now had nearly disastrous experiences, it would be logical to assume that Frogstick is also in trouble at this moment," he assayed.
        I whispered to Billy, "It's the old fantastic fiction theory again." I snickered into my hand.
        Suddenly the birds stopped their singing. Then, from far across the flat wetlands, an echoing cry arose. Wailing eerily as it passed over the marshes, the sound startled giant cranes into flight and put our hearts into our throats. It was the unmistakable basso voice of Frogstick Gutchins, our close personal friend and fellow musical hayseed.
        "Help!" boomed the voice, "Help!" It obviously came from a great distance. Now a garbled sentence was blown off course by an errant breeze. Only two words were clear.
        "Gators!" he cried, "Gators!"
        Then, the voice ceased.