I waved a hand at Agoville, “Welcome to the strangest town in any dimension.”

Gwen peered at the town. “Is that a giant clock radio?”

“Yep,” I said. “Took a butt-load of Rats to haul the thing from the vortex and place it in the town square. Up close you can see where a giant fist had struck the snooze bar over and over, when it was on Earth–follow me.”

A quick glance at my phone told me that I was accompanied by Gwen, John, Daisy, Renfield and Peety–as a mid-level Penname, my maximum capacity for speaking characters in a scene (not including myself) is three. That meant at least two had to go. I’d been pushing the limit for awhile and my device was starting to overheat. Any further pushing would result in “Narco” a state in which everyone but myself falls asleep right where they are. Renfield solved the problem.

“We’re going ahead to the theatre,” she said. Daisy was still eating and couldn’t care less, and since Peety had no immediate purpose, he tagged along with the others–leaving me with only two characters to support, which also left room for single encounters along the way.

“The theatre?” Gwen asked.

“I thought we had you going with the flow–John there isn’t asking much.”

“I accept the overall premise–since I work in a magic graveyard, I’m open to a lot of things. But I retain the right to ask simple questions,” Gwen said.

“Sigh–loud sigh,” I, well, sighed. “If you’re gonna be a pill about it, the gang is checking in on the preparations of an Awards Show, um the pushsprings–yeah, that’s it–the pushspings awards–It was supposed to be a surprise until you got all quizzy.”

“Awards show?” John Asked.

“Et tu, with the third degree, John?”

“Know what? I bet you just made that Awards Show thing up right now,” Gwen said. “Know what, I’m going to hold you to it.”

A Lamb, a Ewette, dyed green, named Riff Randi, a student at the Rock and Roll Lamb School, poked her head from behind a salal bush and called “Hey Blondie-gotta a message for you!” (Gwen is blond and takes a surprising amount of shit about it.) Gwen glared in Riff’s direction and the jd Ewette spat out two loud fart-like noises known as “raspberries,” at the same time tugging on an invisible cord, mimicking the pull of a truck horn. With that shared, she bounded off into the woods.

“Aren’t you at your maximum daily word capacity yet?” Gwen asked, through clenched teeth.

“Hey, you aren’t supposed to know about that. But now that you mention it, I am.”

End Part Nine