(Please recall the hoodwink warning issued yesterday)
Five of us wound up at “Daisy’s Dell.” Aside from Daisy, Renfield and myself, we picked up a pair of hitch-hiking Black Rats named Tully and Aiedeline. They were on their honeymoon.
We arrived at a little clearing at the edge of the ever enlarging Enchanted Wood. For once Anita Know (a Ghost who, by choice, and without being asked, mind you) was not around, because she was attending a Ghost Conference. So I dug for meaningless information as annoyingly as possible.
“Isn’t this a meadow?” I asked.
“No,” Daisy huffed. “It is a dell, Daisy’s Dell.”
“You sure it’s not a glade? I have heard that there are shady characters in glades.”
Daisy hopped into the air and landed all four hooves at once. “Dell!” she snapped at me upon said landing.
“Alright, take it easy, have it your way,” I said. I got out of the cart and nearly fell on my face because it was still moving.
“Careful,” Tully and Aideline said together.
“Um, yes, thank you,” I said, glaring at smiling Renfield who finds physical humor that doesn’t involve her, funny.
“So, this a spa?”
“We think of it as an Entertainment multiplex,” Daisy said.
“We?”
“Yes,” Renfield added, “we have many investors.”
I looked around. There was the bottle of Jack the Boss had sent through the interdimensional vortex. The vortex greatly enlarges inanimate objects. Thus the “pint” (and blessed contents) was ten feet tall and had a siphon hose attached to it. It stood between a pair of plastic picnic tables and benches from something like a Barbie camping set, which had enlarged to the size of your basic picnic bench and table arrangement. It became apparent to me that every structure in Daisy’s Dell was a small toy enlarged to the size of the item represented by its, um, toyness.
“Have a drink,” Daisy said. The Rats didn’t need an invitation, they were already at the pint filling thimbles. I didn’t require extra urging, and I found a tumbler glass by the siphon that had my name (spelled “LAYLUH”) written on it in what looked like a sharpie held by hooves.
The siphon was a well made one and it had a little hand pump. Nary a drop was wasted. I filled the tumbler to two fingers. This was done out of muscle memory, not a conscious action.
I glanced around and saw a large circus tent and several green and red houses that looked like the hotels and houses in a Monopoly game. But these had working doors and I saw plenty of Saragun citizens coming and going. Everyone was smiling. I figured they were probably high on something.
“So, what is this some sort of casino?” I asked. I figured that the answer would require a bit of a buzz for me to understand. So I swallowed the contents of my glass and refilled it.
“Yes it is,” Daisy said. And we welcome all readers to drop in and visit Daisy’s Dell at Saragun Springs every daily day. Especially on Halloween, in thirteenly thirteen days. We will be sharing a Big Announcement near the giant bottle–provided Leila leaves any.”
“Ah shit,” I said, the Awful Truth now numbing my mind. “Do you mean that the last two days have been an advertisement?”
Everyone who has been in this tale the past two days nodded enthusiastically.
Sigh….
Well, here I am holding the glass, so to speak. All right, readers be sure to drop into Daisy’s Dell on the 31st for big news. Sorry about the intrusion into your lives–but it’s not like we are using them for anything if we are involved in this—right?
Saragun Springs 