Excerpt from CHIPPING CAMDEN
AND THE EXWORMINATOR
Top
of the morning, chap! My name is Chipping Camden. A dignified name for a dignified mouse.
Pardon me while I prepare a pre-lunch snack. I call it Plack.
Potato chips, pudding, and pumpkin pie. Some for my belly. Some for my thigh.
Speaking of bellies, don’t ever let anyone tell you high-calorie,
sugar-loaded snacks are bad for you. Just last month, my belly saved my life.
I remember it well. It was a jolly good afternoon, so I decided to take a stroll to the bakery. But
my stroll was suddenly interrupted when a vehicle being driven at high velocity came out of nowhere. Fire emanated from its
tires. Screams emanated from its occupants.
A
collision was unavoidable. Fortunately, there were no fatalities. But when the vehicle struck me, I heard a thunderous Boom!
I bounced around the sidewalk on my beach-ball shaped belly. It turned out to be a superior cushioning device.
When I recovered enough to stand up, I noticed a newly-formed flatness
on the tip of my tail. See? Oh, I was more than perturbed. If it hadn’t been for all the crowd gathering, finger wagging,
and diaper throwing, the driver would have kept going.
Public
embarrassment forced him to engage me in conversation. He walked over to me and said, “I’ll make you a deal. If
you stop crying and screaming, I’ll give you a magical map.”
First of all, I wasn’t crying and screaming too much, but he knew how to appeal to my curiosity.
I asked to see the map. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn and yellow piece of paper folded into the size of
a human thumb. “My name is Mr. Chance,” he said. “Owner of Chance’s Magic.”
“Magical?” I said. I took the paper and sniffed it
suspiciously. In the end, I agreed to take his magical map. If there’s anything I love more than food, it’s the
ability to wish for more food.
