There were several paths that led into the mountains, but most were infested with evil creatures, dead ends, and dead creatures that had met a most evil end. By following the sage advice of L. Ron, the wobbit and the Little People were able to choose the correct path upon which to continue their journey. “The universe is how you perceive it,” L. Ron had explained. “Move mountains with your mind, not your might. Take the third path on the left.”
It had been many days since they had left Livinwell, but still they ventured upward, unable to afford the Express Lane tickets that would have taken them directly to the summit. Soon they were high enough to look out over the lands they had crossed, the convenient attribute of geography that makes a good YOLO so cinematic in the first place. For the first time Billy saw how far they’d traveled: not very far. He had forgotten that Livinwell was only a couple miles away from his wobbit-hole and that most of their time was spent with the Little People waiting up ahead for Billy to wobble faster on his squatty legs. A chain was only as strong as its weakest link, and a traveling expedition was only as fast as its weakest link. He could also see he had left his front door wide open.
The Little People were quiet, and even Whorey, Slorey, and Kourtney had given up on complaining once they realized how hot they looked covered in volcanic ash. The silence was broken only by the sound of water flowing from the ice-capped peaks, reminding them all how much they had to use the bathroom.I
Billy was concerned about the YOLO. Dumbledalf was worried too, noting that the centaurs they were riding seemed to have been horrifically disfigured. The YOLO was in grave danger: at the pace they were going, it might very well have taken more than one lifetime. But a mountain was no place to move quickly, as one wrong step could send a traveler plummeting. A mountain climber falling thousands of feet to his death was nothing remarkable in the area, as the Land of Foolhardy Idiot Mountain Climbers was just down the way. But if one of our merry band was to fall, they’d be left with the remaining dreaded number of thirteen travelers, a big no-no in the YOLO department. Seven-on-seven games of field hockey would henceforth be impossible. Should terrible fate ordain this to happen, all agreed that Doc should kill himself to get it back to an even twelve.
The bleak was only turning bleaker.II Billy implored Dumbledalf to do something to boost morale.
The wizard cleared his throat. “On YOLOs you are to expect the unexpected. As you may expect, this would leave the previously expected unexpected. We can’t be expected to expect both the expected and unexpected.”
He pulled a broken, entirely unusable bright-pink umbrella from his cloak.
“I’m expecting rain.”
With that, the sound of thunder from the east echoed through the mountains.III Billy shivered with fear, which, thanks to the energy-amplifying properties of his fat rolls, shook the entire mountain even more.
Boulders tumbled down from the cliffs, loosened from their centuries-old lodgings by the wobbit-induced rumble. The rocks were almost as difficult to dodge as the raindrops, and a good deal more difficult to swallow.
The band took cover under a hanging boulder, hoping it wouldn’t fall and squash them all, rendering the next nine chapters pointless. The wind whipped about and the rain blew sideways into the cave. Loin and Groin began unpacking the food bags.
“Quickly, help us drain the sacks,” Loin cried. “We need to rub them out so the wetness doesn’t stick.” The Little People sighed. Another false alarm.
Kourtney, meanwhile, stepped out from under the rock to find a better Wi-Fi signal, and spotted a light in the distance. She took a picture of it and uploaded it to MaceBook.IV Upon receiving the notification, Dumbledalf decided it was best that they move toward the light, as it might be the golden bitch, a pesky female golden retriever he had been trying to get his hands on for years.
Billy looked upon the light with wonder. He believed in the gold light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded him then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow he would would run faster, stretch out his arms farther . . . and then one fine morning—well, that actually seems like a lot to expect from a wobbit. He quietly adjusted his aspirations and ate an entire carton of Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream, spoon against the caramel, borne back ceaselessly into the ice cream cramps.
Billy wobbled out into the howling storm and was immediately struck by a boulder, which ricocheted off his right love handle and out into the abyss below. It came from the rock giants, three towering forces as tall as mountains and made of the same thing mountains are made of. They were essentially mountains.
To reach the light in the distance, the YOLOers had to traverse a narrow ridge. On the right were the giants and the tumbling boulders that threatened to knock them to their deaths. On the left was a deep crevice full of diamonds, reinforced concrete, and steel beams. They were truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.V
“Let’s go again,” said one giant. “On three. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”
“Are we throwing on ‘scissors’ or ‘shoot’ this time?”
“We’ve been playing this game for centuries, Dave. You know we go on shoot.”
After four hundred years, the other two rock giants were rather sick of Dave’s mind games.
They each raised a fist. “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”
They all threw rock. It was their millionth tie in a row. The mountain climber that they had imprisoned as scorekeeper put up his “One Million Ties!” banner and launched some confetti, but it was too small for the giants to see.VI
The giants yelled in anger at themselves and one another. They kicked and punched the mountainside, sending boulders tumbling down toward the Little People.
“Why don’t you idiots ever throw anything other than rock?”
It was classic reverse psychology.
“Why don’t you throw something other than rock?”
Reverse psychology in reverse.
“Maybe I will. Watch this.”
The giants all steadied their hands. “Rock, paper, scissors . . . shoot!”
They all threw rock. Dave’s mind games were such BS.
At last our weary travelers arrived at a landing safe from the giants’ wrath. They could now see the light was a pink-and-yellow neon sign—an arrow pointing to the entrance of a cave. The words “No Evil Beasts Here” blinked on and off, connected to one of the longest power cords in the land. As a precaution, Sorkinshield checked his phone, but the cave proved to have a five-star rating on Welp.VII “Not the most ideal location,” noted the top comment, “but what this cave lacks in amenities it definitely makes up for in no evil beasts.”
Billy was wary of the cave. It was difficult to discern how far back it went, and whether or not it finally had some sort of toilet in it. But the rest of the company had already begun to unpack, and Dumbledalf was busy ordering a stalagmite in the corner to not be a Voldemancer anymore.
They laid out their wet clothing and reclined in their underwear. (Wobbits wore boxers, Little People preferred briefs, and wizards lacked genitals.) Before long everyone was asleep save Billy. This hole-in-the-mountain was a far cry from his hole-in-the-ground, and he had peculiar dreams about the back of the cave sliding open to reveal an old-fashioned diner filled with Italian clientele plotting their enemies’ downfalls and having rather conservative ideas about gender. Billy lay frozen as one of the waiters walked out the door, flipped off the light switch for the neon arrow, and hung a new sign which read “Moblin Cave: Grand Opening!”
The waiter grabbed the ponies and led them into the eatery, but not before Billy could yell, “Stop! Thief! Thief who isn’t me!”
The Little People awoke with a start. Dumbledalf, who slept with his eyes, mouth, ears, and nose open, lay on the floor drooling. Buffer smacked him upside the head for a few minutes until he rose without so much as blinking, coughing, listening, or trimming his nose hairs.
“Someone has taken our ponies and disappeared behind the disappearing wall!”
“The poor unicorns!” exclaimed Dumbledalf. “Necromort probably drank them.” Everybody would have asked who Necromort was if just then Billy hadn’t spotted something less important.VIII
“I think this place is called Nino’s Italian Eatery,” speculated Billy, pointing at the sign that said “Nino’s Italian Eatery.” This was a legitimately good guess on the wobbit’s part, considering his illiteracy.
“Moblins!” yelled Sorkinshield, just as six million Moblins began pouring out the reappearing front door. Some were in chef aprons, others in three-piece suits, but all had slicked-back hair and smelled of carnations and garlic. They rushed toward the YOLOers, snatching each one up until they reached Ballin and Drawlin.
“Are these guys with you?” they asked.
“We are mighty Little warriors,” proclaimed Ballin and Drawlin.
“You don’t look like the others. We thought all Little People looked identical.” As proof, the Moblins pointed at Fili and Kiwi, who were struggling mightily in the massive arms of a fedora-wearing Moblin and pecking at a pile of seeds in the corner, respectively.
“But those two are very close-knit biological brothers!” protested Drawlin. This satisfied the Moblins, who dragged the two Little People away as they vigorously debated whether the moral victory of equal treatment they had just achieved was worth them and all of their friends getting killed by Moblins.
As they were shoved into the confectionary, one Moblin cackled. “Let’s show our guests a good time . . . in Jersey.”
The Little People shuddered in fear. Everyone with ears had heard stories of Old Jersey in the tales of old, and everyone without ears had smelled it as they were getting off the highway. There were scary places, and then there were deadly places, and then there was Jersey.
The inside of Holsten’s looked like any ordinary diner, except that it went on forever and held thousands of booths and tables and bloodthirsty Moblins. The floor was covered in melted ice cream, bones of old enemies were stacked high in the corners, and framed pictures of Elf Pacino hung on the walls.
“Enjoy yourselves,” the waiter implored, stopping to turn and shoot a Moblin stealing singles from the register. “The customers are family here.”
“One order of the phoenix, please,” said Dumbledalf, knocking over a couple of stools as he stumbled to the bar. He flipped a solid gold coin high into the air that landed in the bartender’s shirt pocket. It was magical, although he had been aiming for the tip jar.
“Not in this inner-mountain confectionary,” said the bartender, removing the coin and returning it to the wizard.
Dumbledalf shook his head sternly. This time he removed a coin from behind the bartender’s ear. The wizard had been practicing for weeks, although he had planned on just removing the ear.
“Maybe you didn’t hear him the first time,” said a voice from the corner-most corner table. The Little People and Billy turned to face a stocky, balding Moblin with a gravelly voice and a gooey tuft of chest hair poking out from his bowling shirt.
They knew him at once. It was the Moblin, Tony Moblin, numero uno according to the official counting system of Old Jersey.IX Tony Moblin had ordered the hits on Sorkinshield’s family that had started the Moblin–Little People wars so many years ago.
“Well, well, well.” He smiled in a bad way. “If it isn’t Aaron Sorkinshield. I remember personally killing your father’s father. If I recall, he was very mortal.”
Sorkinshield took a quick glance around and sized up their chances. “How many henchmen you got? Eight, nine hundred?”
“Six million. All here and accounted for.” Moblins were legendarily trustworthy accountants.
“I heard you’ve grown power hungry,” said Beefer, taking the opportunity to carbo-load with a huge plate of pasta on which he’d poured a pile of Metamucil. “You sure you can trust all your men? Out of six million, there must be at least one rat.”
Dumbledalf tapped his staff on the floor, turning Tony’s consigliere into a giant rat. He had been trying for a piece of cake.
“Run, Hairy! You’re a wizard!”
“You’re the wizard,” cried Billy.
“I’m the wizard,” confirmed Dumbledalf, and began to throw chairs at the Moblins, accidentally creating a diversion that gave the others a head start.
But Billy quickly remembered how hard it is to run fast when you are very, very slow. Just when he only had nine-tenths of the way to the exit left to go, a hand lurched out and grabbed the wobbit by the throat. He was reeled in and thrust atop a giant bowl of spumoni, face-to-face with Tony Moblin himself.
“You look a little big for a Little Person,” Tony remarked, licking his spoon.
Billy, who was obviously not a Little Person, thought he might be able to fool Tony even still. “I’m one of you guys,” he stammered. “My name is Wobbit De Niro.”
“So you’re a wise guy, huh?” Tony’s theory was that most wise guys were wizards, a theory Dumbledalf did everything in his power to disprove.
Billy surveyed the diner, taking in the total chaos. Amidst the six million Moblins, nary a Little Person could be found. And then—crawling through the saturated legs of the Moblins, assembling ingredients for a tomato-mozzarella-eggplant protein shake as they went, came Beefer and Buffer!
Billy smiled at the dramatic irony. “Say hello to my little friends.”
The onslaught of flying eggplants assaulted Tony before he could raise a hand. Billy seized his chance and bolted for the exit in the back of the restaurant, jogging the quickest he had ever jogged. His secret was being in mortal danger and forgetting to breathe.
He burst through the door and dove into a nearby trash Dumpster. He thought it wise to hide and chew on some two-day-old fettuccine until he was out of danger or got food poisoning, whichever came first. For thirty minutes he sat inside the Dumpster, reminded of the simpler days when he lived in a hole in the ground next to friendly wobbits and polite terrorists.
Just then the door swung open and he heard the pitter-patter of Little People feet dart through the exit with the pitta’-patta’ of Moblin feet hot on their heels. As they chased his friends into the mountain of Old Jersey, they sang a terrifying song. Its words would strike fear into any heart, even if its melody would make those same hearts desperately want to fall in love.
Borgata! Omertà!
La Cosa Nostra!
Head down to Jersey
Like you’re supposed ta!
Goodfellas and goombahs!
Bada boom! Bada bing!
Like Marciano we fight
And Sinatra we sing!
Columbo! Luciano!
Gambino! Capone!
The factories we run
And the unions we own!
The singing continued for what seemed like ages, and that first line didn’t even rhyme. The Moblins followed the Little People deep into the tunnels and forgot all about Billy, who was about as memorable as most of the Billys you know. When the coast was clear, he hopped out of the Dumpster, covered in Parmesan cheese. After a quick half hour of shedding most of his clothes and licking himself clean, he continued his trek into the depths of the mountain.
Several roads stretched out before Billy. Some were twisty and turny, others spiraled downward for miles, and two roads diverged in a yellow wood. The wobbit took the one less traveled by, but it didn’t really make a difference because they ended up working stuff out and coming together again. The path grew darker and darker until Billy couldn’t see where he was going. He would’ve been able to smell where he was going, if where he was going was the pot roast factory and his nose hadn’t been plugged up with Parmesan. Far behind him he could hear the Moblins contemplating what to do.X
“I ain’t going any farther. You know what’s down there.”
“They tried to whack the boss. We don’t have a choice.”
“I mean . . . we kind of have a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how we’re all butchers?”
“Sure.”
“What if we started actually butchering?”
“Like, no more fronts? Just actual butcheries?”
“We retire from the game, play it straight. For our families. For our children’s children. We stick to killing animals. What do you say?”
“What about the rats?”
“They’re animals. So of course we still whack the rats.”
Billy was thoroughly frightened by the Moblins’ reluctance to go farther. He kept bumping into stalagmites, running into stalactites, and falling headfirst down the occasional flight of stairs. Making little progress, he decided to take a rest and look for directions. Of course, his 3G service had no bars inside the mountain, and he was relegated to a few quick games of Tetris to calm his nerves. He pushed onward into the depths of Old Jersey, his phone’s flashlight app leading the way.
Back in Holsten’s Brookdale Confectionary, Tony Moblin was sucking down spumoni with anger. He had missed his chance to kill Sorkinshield, mortal enemy and rival screenwriter. The other Moblins knew better than to disturb him, plus most of them were trying to get the consigliere out of a mousetrap.
He decided to take solace in his family, inviting them to join him over a basket of onion rings. At the end of the day, even if there were no identifiable days inside of a mountain, what else really mattered in life?XI Then the front door swung open, a bell rung, Tony looked up, and the chapter ended with a bang.
I You may be wondering why it is that all these books with all these YOLOs never show anybody, you know, answering Widdle Wearth’s call. The answer is quite simple: none of them have gone to the bathroom once since chapter one. This may be a problem later!
II Soon things will be bleakest.
III Thunderstorms from the east are loud, violent, and always in a hurry to get where they’re going. Western storms, on the other hand, are pretty chill.
IV A social networking site for bloodthirsty warriors. Dumbledalf claimed to have had a role in starting it, but Sorkinshield reminded him that if he had invented MaceBook, he would have invented MaceBook.
V Copyright 2013, The Harvard Lampoon.
VI The scorekeeper was a sad sort, of course, having been imprisoned most of his life. He had but one dream: to one day write a musical about Rock Paper Scissors that college students could perform for free to one another. Sadly, musicals had yet to be invented in Widdle Wearth, and besides, can you imagine what that musical would be like? There would have to be songs in it.
VII It’s like Yelp with a W . . . do I really have to keep explaining these?
VIII In case you’re wondering, reader, Necromort the Voldemancer is a deeply evil force in Widdle Wearth that Dumbledalf had mentioned many a time already on this quest. Nobody else has ever seen or heard of him.
IX Numero Uno, Papa John’s, Domino’s, five.
X The Parmesan in his ears actually seemed to be helping.
XI The Harvard Lampoon leaves this question open for debate and discussion in your book circles and prison reading groups.