“YES, BOSS!” Squirmy screamed at the top of his lungs. “I’LL BE QUIET FROM NOW ON!”
Squirmy cowered in fear as the hairy flat of Baby Boss’s right paw caught him flush on the head. He dropped to his knees, reeling, but continued to slobber and mewl.
~ * ~
“I said—!” Baby Boss began, then suddenly his rage turned to alarm and he pressed Squirmy tightly against the cavern wall.
“Someone’s coming!” he hissed.
Squirmy continued to whimper, and Baby Boss covered the slavering hamster’s mouth with his paw as he studied the cave gloom ahead.
From around the cavern corner came a happy clucking sound, and Doozy the Chicken appeared, her feathery dugs prominently displayed before her as she twirled her Magic Umbrella, which gave a sparkly luminescence to the dank, dreary cave.
“Cluck-CLUCK! Cluck cl-cl-cluck…” Doozy sang, until she spied Baby Boss and stopped dead in her tracks.
“You—!” she clucked.
“Yes, me!” Baby Boss snarled, jumping out into the center of the cave. Behind him, Squirmy’s drool-covered, asphyxiated body sank to the floor.
“I knew it would come to this…” Doozy avered.
“By all the chittering chipmunks in heaven, you’re right!”
Doozy twirled her umbrella, whose lights dimmed to a soft green glow. A target sight and trigger materialized from the instrument’s handle.
But Baby Boss’s twin six guns were already blazing, and Doozy disappeared in a cloud of brown feathers.
“CLUUUUUUUCK!” she cried, her last word cut off by the rain of deadly lead.
The walls of the cavern trembled and collapsed around Baby Boss’s ears.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered—
~ * ~
REEL EIGHT
~ * ~
“Ha!” Baby Boss cried, brushing dirt from his furry hamster torso as he stood in Hamster Central, the largest of all the underground caverns. “That was close!”
He strode with purpose to the Underground Hamster Alarm, and pushed the large, brightly lit button. Instantly the call went out, a high chirrupy squeal, and before long the Underground Hamsters were assembled before him expectantly.
“Hamsters!” Baby Boss shouted, throwing his paws into the air. “Our day of triumph has arrived! Doozy the Chicken is dead!”
“Not so fast!” came a clucky voice from the rear of the assembly. The sea of hamsters parted and there stood Doozy, unfeathered but alive. A neat line of bullet holes traced through her bodice above her massive dugs.
“But--” Baby Boss sputtered in disbelief.
With a grand gesture, Doozy drew a wing across the front of her body, which fell to the floor. Behind what had been an impenetrable shell, containing her false dugs and the line of bullet holes, each still containing the bullet which had never reached her, was her real chicken chest, brown feathers and all.
“Everyone knows chickens don’t have tits!” Doozy cried, and drew out her Magic Umbrella, already glowing green in weapon-mode.
Pandemonium, and the cries of frightened hamsters, filled Hamster Central until the roof, with a massive roar, suddenly caved in.
“Oh, shit,” Doozy clucked.
~ * ~
BABY BOSS AND THE UNDERGROUND HAMSTERS HOLIDAY SPECIAL…LIVE FROM HAMSTER CENTRAL…!!!
~ * ~
Scene: Hamster Central, a huge, dome-ceilinged cavern, and the underground rallying point for all hamsters. It is Christmas Eve. Hamster Central has been decked out in holiday colors, greenery and red bows, twinkling Christmas lights—it is a veritable Fezziwig’s Ball. From somewhere, the muted sounds of Christmas music is heard, Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Song”. A massive sideboard is crowded with food and drink: a glistening moist turkey, two huge pink hams, a punch bowl as big as a child’s swimming pool lapping waves of spiked eggnog.
~ * ~
In the center of Hamster Central, alone, two figures dance slowly: Baby Boss and Doozy the Chicken. Their happy voices murmur and coo; amidst their whispers of affection the sound of contented laughter. We listen in:
~ * ~
DOOZY (sighing): I wish this evening could go on forever, Baby. I wish this could always be (sighing again) our Christmas Eve.
~ * ~
BABY: Me, too. It’s a mystery to me how one magic evening could change everything. Yesterday we were bitter enemies, and now…
~ * ~
DOOZY (blushing): Yes, now…
~ * ~
BABY (sighing himself, a regretful sound): But soon the Underground Hamsters will be back, and the promised party will begin. (gazes lovingly into Doozy’s eyes, his eyes glittering with a sudden thought): Our special night will be a night to be shared by all!
~ * ~
BABY, SUDDENLY SHY, PUSHES DOOZY GENTLY AWAY AND THEN ABRUPTLY GETS DOWN ON ONE KNEE. HE FUMBLES SOMETHING FROM HIS FUR, SOMETHING WHICH SPARKLES WITH THE CAUGHT REFLECTION OF A THOUSAND TWINKLING CHRISTMAS LIGHTS—
~ * ~
DOOZY: A ring!
~ * ~
BABY: (holding the knuckle-sized diamond up toward Doozy, while placing his other paw over his heart) Doozy Chicken, will you marry me?
~ * ~
DOOZY: Will I? This is a dream come true!
~ * ~
THERE ARE SOUNDS FROM THE MANY CAVERNS LEADING INTO
HAMSTER CENTRAL, AND NOW THE UNDERGROUND HAMSTERS
APPEAR, LAUGHING, JOSTLING ONE ANOTHER, IN GOOD SPIRITS
AND LOOKING FORWARD TO THE PARTY TO COME. BUT, AS ONE,
THEY HALT AND GASP AT THE SIGHT OF THEIR BOSS AND DOOZY.
~ * ~
SPIFFY: It’s Baby Boss! And he’s in the clutches of Doozy!
~ * ~
ALL HAMSTERS, AS ONE: Let’s get her!
~ * ~
BABY (his voice drowned out by the roaring torrent of screaming hamsters around him): Stop!
~ * ~
HE HOLDS UP HIS PAWS FOR SILENCE, BUT IS IGNORED AS THE HAMSTERS, THEIR MOUTHS FROTHING IN FURY, TEAR DOOZY TO SHREDS. FEATHERS FLY MADLY AND THERE IS A SINGLE STRANGLED CLUCK AND THEN SUDDEN, COMPLETE SILENCE.
~ * ~
BABY (staring in horror at what is left of his beloved: a pile of bloody feathers, a beak, two wrinkly feet): What have you done! This was the last chance for reconciliation between hamsters and chickens! And…I loved her!
~ * ~
HE BEGINS TO WEEP AS THE CEILING SUDDENLY COLLAPSES, SENDING TONS OF ROCK, SOIL AND SNOW FROM THE WHITE CHRISTMAS ABOVE DOWN UPON THEM.
~ * ~
HAMSTERS (as one): Oh, shit—
~ * ~
REEL EIGHTEEN
~ * ~
Baby Boss awoke at his desk with the sour taste of bourbon in his mouth.
How long had it been? Two weeks? A year?
He groaned, as memory, along with the desk calendar in front of his face, told him the real story: it had been only a week, for today was New Year’s Day.
“Oh why! Why!” he cried, throwing his paws out, knocking the empty Jim Beam bottle from his blotter to the floor, where it crashed atop a pile of three-dozen others. “Just when happiness was in my grasp!”
He looked up at his paw, which closed into a furry fist—and then a bout of weeping overcame him and he covered his face with his paws and lowered it to the desk. “Oh Doozy, my love, you are gone!”
There came a sound behind him in the doorway that separated his office from the cave beyond. A tentative knock followed.