The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

        "Shhhh!"
        I awoke in a desperate situation. I was trapped.
        A steely grasped my shoulder in a crushing, vise-like grip, while another pressed hard against my mouth.
        I tried to scream as a sickening surge of adrenalin flooded through my belly. Darting my eyes around, I saw that it was dark; the fire was out, and the sky was suffused with the faint flow of the coming dawn.
        A shadowy figure loomed menacingly above me, his bone-hard, ice-cold, callous-encrusted hands crushing me into the cot. It was as if I had been seized by a deadly stone troll of the cold Florida night, come to fetch me to his house for a large, one-course dinner… if you know what I mean.
        I grabbed a cigar-like finger between my teeth and gave it a hefty chomp, shoving the invader away as I leaped to my feet.
        "EEEEYAAAGH!!" he hollered, jumping up and down and shaking his hand frantically.
        "EEEEYAAAGH!" I yelled, looking around for a stick. The whole camp was roused by the uproar.
        Egghead squinted and sat up, groping for his glasses. Frogstick fell out of his hammock and floundered clumsily to his feet. Stink came running up from his tent in the next clearing. Slug rolled over and blinked drowsily at the commotion, while Zeb, inspired by the atonal screeching, began to leap and dance along with the intruder.
        I grabbed my flashlight and shined the beam on the frolicking forms. Boy, was I surprised! Zeb's dancing partner was none other than our close personal friend, the world's greatest playwright. It was that famous Native American scribe, Mr. Billy Trembling-Lance himself!
        "Begone, begone, dim light man," he cried, offended by the glaring light. "Uncork the limber limbs of day. And flee before the ire of the broad and brawny friend that you in rabid envy have fanged: quid mutilatum comitatus!"
        "Gee I'm sorry, Billy," I told him. "I thought that you were a wooly booger."
        "Hooting child copped a dent; sunk into the howling gypsy winter of another world," Zeb chipped in at this point. "Scattered reflections of yesterday I have brought to you today, in my open hand or hidden in my tongue."
        "What a poet," sighed Frogstick.
        About that time the wind shifted, and a blast of toxic fumes smote us like a red-hot hammer. It was Stink.
        "Aaaaagh!" we cried, scattering like flies before the keening wind.
        Poor old Stinky stood alone in the center of the empty clearing. As I fled, I looked back over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of his mournful face. The sight of it painfully moved me.
        Stink shivered like an abandoned puppy in the morning chill, his homely Hillbilly kisser drooping like a windless flag in the dawn's early light. I stopped running and considered the situation.
        "Hey, Billy, Zeb, fellas," I hollered. They stopped and walked back in my direction, sniffing suspiciously at the cruelly fickle wind. When they were all gathered around me hopefully, I spoke. "Boys," I palavered, "I reckon it's time that we did something about our old buddy Stink."
        "Dump him!" shouted Slug.
        "No, we're not gonna dump him," I spluttered, shaking my head. "He's family… more or less, anyway."
        "Yeah," hooted Frogstick, "and he looks about as sad as a dying calf in a thunderstorm." At this jaundiced juncture, Billy spoke up:

This hard besets the tender nose
That once had sniffed with kings.
What price, what price, fair destiny?
I bow my head: alone, undone;
Afraid to meet the yawning day.
(The Dingle in the Dell, VI. iii. 45-49)

        As he pensively pondered the words of the bardish one, Egghead looked somewhat unborbled. Then he opened his own mouth and said something that really made sense.
        "I foresaw the inevitability of this moment," he declared. From behind his back he drew out a long nylon rope.
        "Your turn, Frogstick," I said. Frogstick lassoed Stinky, and we all dragged him into the cool, clear waters of the Little Flipper. Stink stoically submitted as we scrubbed him with the mop and detergent that Egghead had brought along, just in case such an event was necessary. In this unusual fashion our boon companion and America's least-wanted person, the infamous Mortimer K. "Stinky" Mugtussle, received his annual bath. The effects didn't last for long, but they did cut the stench down to a bearable level for a while.
        We burned his clothes on the banks of the river.
        Well now, it wasn't very long before old Sir Stinky was dressed up in some of my own clean threads, and he joined us around the fire. Zeb and Billy were engaged in a free form exchange of blank verse as breakfast cooked on the coals, and the smell of bacon and eggs and fried cooter set my stomach to gnawing against my ribs. The sun rose above the horizon, and the fire radiated warmth against the sharp morning chill.
        "Forsooth, or so I thought to say," quoth Billy, "what light above yon tree line slakes the gaping maw of day?"
        "It's just the sun," blurted Frogstick. "Cain't you tell?" We chucked Frogstick a glance that was as withered as all get-out. But it was too late to fix things, because Frogstick's inane blathering had already set Billy off:

What bilious bulb of burping beeps bespots
The green, green grass that grows
In solemn, proud profusion here
On this fair Florida sod?
Must callow fools with flaccid minds
Escape the straits of greater souls
To float so lightly on the waves
And sail so proudly on the bumptious brine?
Oft those whose very thoughts offend
Come winding into port alive
Propelled by gusts of empty thought,
Their sails filled full of calumny,
While grander ships discover reefs
And set their sails in vain.
(Hither and Yon, II. iv. 16-23)

        "Well, I'll be switched," said Frogstick, "that's some right purty poetry." He turned to me and cupped his hand to the side of his mouth. "What did he say?" he asked desperately.
        "He made a joke," I whispered.
        "Ha ha ha!" boomed old Frogstick, "That's a good one!" Froggy slapped Billy hard on the back, causing him to spray his coffee all over the fire.
        "Where's the cooter?" yelled Slug.
        "Let's eat!" crowed Stink. So eat we did.
        We had us a real feast that morning. I hope that you don't mind if I buff up this page with some sentimental wax, but I just have to say that it was just great to be rubbing elbows and eating breakfast with such sincere and genuinely real pals. The cooter was just right. The lightly breaded strips of succulent white flesh melted sensationally as we mashed them in the drooling holes that happened to be mounted in the front of our faces. The eggs and bacon were right sporty, too.
        Soon we had foundered ourselves with the glorious fare. We lolled around indolently, scarcely moving a muscle. Songbirds fluttered from tree to tree, filling the clear autumn air with their sweet music. Squirrels scampered across long, mossy limbs, while the morning sun busily splashed the scene with beams of light, illuminating the brilliant hues of another gorgeous day.
        I don't know exactly how long we rested there after this feast. I drifted in and out of sleep, full of good food and pleasant thoughts.