It was a crisp, cool and overall pleasant morning in the small village of Trouble Valley. The only clouds in the sky were blanketed lazily over the hills and the mountains, as the dawn sun shone over the valley.
Goldie Barrett decided this was the perfect time for a game of Rugby, but her relatives didn’t seem interested in joining her.
Libby Barrett had no interest in playing Rugby, much preferring the calmer activity of assembling jigsaw puzzles.
The puzzle she was working on now, according to the picture on the box, was an image of a proud-looking black stallion, standing on his hind legs.
Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, having spent the previous night grading school homework, as her mother, Diana Barrett, was the teacher at the Trouble Valley schoolroom, a modest red building. She was exhausted, and had black rings around her eyes.
She had next to her a big cup of coffee, and written on this cup of coffee were the words, “I’M REALLY EASY TO GET
ALONG WITH ONCE YOU LEARN TO WORSHIP ME.”
Libby, knowing her Mother quite well, felt that this was only half-true, but did not bother to point it out.
Her Father, Milton Barrett, was quite busy tending to the beehives. She could hardly understand him with all the bees buzzing about.
At this time, Sunil Yohannan was picking fruit with his mother, Madhavari, and complaining about it. He was convinced that there were aliens living down his shower-drains because his comic books said so, and he was trying to convince Madhavari of this.
When it became apparent that there was no convincing her that they would all be cyborg-slaves on Planet Fnord by sundown, Sunil bitterly tossed his apple away, and it flowed down the stream until it rested on a small road by the embankment, and was swiftly run over by a passing horse carriage.
This horse carriage was owned by a Cheese Merchant, who had come to sell all her cheeses.
She was selling Brie Cheese, Camembert Cheese, Feta Cheese, Havarti Cheese, Derby Cheese, Oxford Blue Cheese, Vasterbottonost Cheese, Wensleydale Cheese, and even had some Sainte Maure Cheese too. She was selling many, many cheeses, and hoped she would sell these cheeses in Trouble Valley and make some money to support herself.
But then, a bureaucratic sheriff came along and declared that the Cheese Merchant needed to fill in a 93-paged form before she could enter Trouble Valley, filled with queries like: MOTHERS MAIDEN NAME__________________
POST CODE OF THE LAST MAN/WOMAN YOU FRENCH-
KISSED_______________________
ARE YOU PLANNING TO WIPE TROUBLE VALLEY OFF
THE FACE OF THE EARTH? YES/NO
It also specifically listed certain laws Trouble Valley had; for example…
Rule 54: It is illegal to dance on the rooftops of homes during the winter solstice unless wearing a sombrero.
Rule 55: It is illegal to own a sombrero.
Rule 79: It is illegal to use any horse, cow, sheep or dog as practice for seduction techniques. Cats and ducks are ok.
Rule 106: It is illegal to attempt to convert wild wolves to Taoism for the purposes of tax evasion.
It also outlined that there was an extra tax if the Horse was being fed on any non-local oats, for ‘security reasons’ of course.
Also, she was told that pages 1-19 must be answered with green pen, the pages from 20-59 in red pen, and the pages from 60-92 in black pen, and that page 93 must be answered in hieroglyphics in any color pen she chose.
She also had to answer completely random trivia questions, such as these:
In what year did Alfred the Great die? _________________
What was the name of Francis Bacon’s Mother?
_________________
Where were the Grimm Brothers born? _________________
Who wrote “The Sorrows of Young Werther’?
_________________
In what year did Martin Luther write his 95 theses?
___________
But eventually she managed to fill in all the right forms, signing here, there, here and over there but not here, over here but not there, there but not over here, here but not over there, there but not over there, here but not over here, initials here, and write down a few verses from a classic French poem along the margins there.
No, not there. There. Write the verses in English, please.
Her favorite French poem was Aucassin and Nicolette, which her mother had read to her when she was a child.
She handed the forms to the bureaucratic sheriff, who carefully looked over each page.
“You missed page 31.” He said, handing it back to her. On page 31 was the query, ‘Which Bible Verse accurately describes your current station in life?’
As a devout Mazdakist2, the cheese merchant knew little of Christianity or the bible, so she picked a bible verse at random and quickly scribbled down the verse,
“REVELATION 7.14. ” in red ink.
This seemed to satisfy the bureaucratic sheriff, and he let her pass through into the village of Trouble Valley.
She rode her carriage to the Tirikatene Family House.
The Tirikatene Family would help her sell her cheeses, and they began by helping her carry her cheeses off the wagon.
Tipene helped carry down boxes of Oxford Blue Cheese and Camembert Cheese, while his little brother Wiremu carried down some boxes of Wensleydale Cheese.
Tane carried some surprisingly heavy boxes of Feta Cheese under both arms, while Moana carried down the Derby Cheese and the Vasterbottonost Cheese, whilst the Cheese Merchant herself carried down the Sainte Maure Cheese, and the Horse ate all the Havarti Cheese when nobody was looking.
2 The prophet Mazdak preached against eating the flesh of animals, but he was perfectly fine with the eating of milk, cheese and eggs, but there did not seem to be many Mazdakist French Cheese Merchants that she knew of.
Then, Tipene walked off to go to the Slump County Carnival.
Today was the day of the Slump County Carnival, in which all the folks from various villages nearby would come to offer their wares to any interested takers.
There was a Tarot-Reader from Allen‘s Alley, a Bird-House Craftsman from Pancake Ridge, a Stone-Mason from Pitiful Peak, and much more else besides.
The distinct scent of hot-dogs and toffee apples wafted through the air.
Tipene wandered around to see what other exciting attractions the Carnival might have to offer. He looked around.
Nearby, he could see some of his friends; Matt, Andrew, Jack, Monica and Julia walking past a podium. He liked these friends, although lately they seemed to be behaving somewhat distant.
Atop the podium was a large, fat man holding a raffle of some sort. He spun a large wheel with lots of numbers on it, with a bright red peg at the top. When the wheel stopped spinning, he smiled and turned to the crowd. The fat man announced,
“7-14! Who here has a raffle ticket reading Revelation 7-14?? ”
Tipene had no interest in raffles, so he kept walking. He came to a stall that caught his eye.
It was one of those TEST YOUR SKILLS Games that so often turned up at Carnivals such as this one.
The rules were quite simple; knock over all the bottles with a ball, and you would win a prize.
Tipene had heard from Julia that these games were nothing but scams designed to separate foolish patrons from their money. But Tipene decided that he would be more trusting in this game when he saw what was offered as first prize; a set of brand-new golf clubs.
Tipene knew that his father, Tane, loved golf, and it would make a lovely birthday present. Maybe Tane would be so impressed that he’d let Tipene sleep in for once, rather than wake him up early at around five a.m. so they could milk the cows.
It was a risk Tipene was willing to take, so he searched his pockets and had just enough change to play 3 games.
He handed the change to a greasy-looking man who looked like he hadn’t shaved for a great long while.
In the first two games, despite his strength, Tipene failed to knock down a single bottle. It was as if they’d been glued together. But that couldn’t be possible, Tipene thought, because that would be cheating.
So, Tipene took a long, deep breath, and then, with all his might, he tossed the ball at the bottles.
This time every bottle was knocked down… every bottle, that is, except for one.
If Tipene knew any swear words, and was not so polite, he would have cursed under his breath.
But he did not; so instead he silently gritted his teeth as the Man went up to the prize box, past the brand-new set of golf clubs, and grabbed a tatty-looking old teddy-bear.
Tipene was far too old for teddy-bears, but far too nice and mature to turn down his prize and throw a tantrum on how much he deserved those golf clubs.
So he graciously accepted the raggedy old teddy bear.
The sky had changed from its usual light-blue color and was now covered with a thick grey blanket of cloudy clouds. It started to rain lightly.
And so, with nothing left to do in the village, Tipene hurried back home to his house, absent-mindedly carrying the old teddy bear behind him.
As he entered the lounge, he saw his younger brother, Wiremu, lying on the couch reading comic books.
“Hey Wiremu, want a teddy-bear?” Tipene asked.
“Ewww no! Those are for BABIES!” Wiremu exclaimed, and then turned back to his comic book.
Tipene sighed and retired to his bedroom, casually tossing the teddy-bear on the floor. Normally he would not have been so careless; he knew his mother Moana would want to have a word or two with him about his messy room, having very strict views on tidiness, but Tipene was so sad that he had missed his chance to win a set of new golf clubs for Tane that he paid no attention to the teddy-bear whatsoever.
Tipene just lay down for a while on his bed, his hands behind his head. He yawned and cracked his knuckles.
He closed his eyes, and, surprisingly, fell asleep almost straight away.
He had a dream that was of absolutely no consequence and has no relevance to the story whatsoever and is only being used by a desperate writer desperately trying to pad out the story with as many words as he or she can think of3; for
example did you notice how ‘desperate’ was repeated there? It said ‘a desperate writer desperately trying’.
That’s just a silly attempt to lengthen up the word count, and the author of this novel knew it perfectly well. But now that he was on a roll, the author didn’t see any reason to stop.
However, the readers of this are probably more interested in hearing the actual story, so the author promised that this meta-fictional gag would not continue for very much longer and would never appear again or be spoken of ever again, in fact it would stop at the very end of this sentence.
3 Axolotls. Veloceraptors. Seaweed. And… uh… Filing Cabinets? I give up. How many words was that? What, only twenty-two words, including this sentence? But I feel like I wrote a thousand!
Tipene had a nice little dream about cuddly brown puppies, and then he awoke with a sudden jolt. The room was dark now.
Looking at the grandfather clock in the hallway, he could tell that it was almost midnight. He had been asleep much longer than he thought.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. Eerily quiet.
Tipene looked over the side of his bed. The teddy-bear was no longer on the floor. This didn’t worry him much though; he assumed that maybe Wiremu had come in and decided he wanted the teddy-bear after all, or perhaps his mother had picked it up, and seeing what a pathetic lousy teddy-bear it was, tossed it into the fire.
Either way, Tipene chose to close his eyes again and see if he could go back to sleep again, even though now he felt rather quite awake.
So maybe he’d just daydream instead, even though it was the middle of the night. He started daydreaming about adorable puppies with big puppy eyes. But then he started hearing heavy breathing, right next to his ear…
Thinking it was a dumb prank his little brother Wiremu was playing; he brushed away at the side of his face, but didn’t hit anything, no little annoying brother, nothing.
This confused Tipene, so he opened his eyes, and staring him in the face was the teddy-bear, with very gleaming, very alive eyes.
Tipene screamed at the top of his lungs as the teddy-bear laughed evilly.
“AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!” Screamed Tipene.
“MUWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Laughed the
teddy-bear.
His parents came running into the room and turned on the light. The teddy-bear became lifeless and limply fell to the floor.
“What’s all the screaming for, Tipene?” Tane asked.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Moana asked.
“Y-yeah, that must have been it.” Tipene said, although he knew that he didn’t have a nightmare; he in fact had a most pleasant dream involving cute little brown puppies playing in a springtime meadow.
“Well, it was just a nightmare, honey. Now go back to sleep.”
Moana said.
Moana and Tane turned the light off and went back to their bed, hoping for no more night terrors.
Tipene closed the door and picked up the teddy-bear.
The teddy-bear suddenly came to life! Tipene dropped it on the cupboard and it stood up with an evil smirk.
“I am the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa! Bow before me and feel my wrath! There is no power more destructive than I, no force more evil, I am the most evil being in all of time and space! MUWAHAHAHA!” Said the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“You there, child! Observe how frightening I am, I am a demonic creature hiding behind the innocent visage of a mere teddy-bear!
I shall laugh at your pleas for mercy as I burn your house to the ground and force you to watch! Fear me! I am the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa!” Said the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
And then The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa gave another evil laugh.
“Watch in horror as I slice your face apart with this simple pocket knife!” Said the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
And with that, the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa tried to grab the nearby pocket knife; however it was too heavy, and he had no fingers to use to hold onto them, only stuffed paws.
The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa struggled and struggled but just couldn’t manage to pick up the pocket knife.
“Hnnnnnnnnnnng!!! Hnnnnnnnnnnng!!!” Said the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“Do you need some help with that?” Tipene asked, stifling a giggle.
“No, I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” Said the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa. But try as he might, he could still not pick up the pocket knife.
“You have no real powers at all, do you? You can’t even pick up a pocket-knife. You’re just a foul-mouthed talking teddy,”
Tipene said, “Aren’t you?”
“Don’t you dare mock me! Do you not know who you are dealing with? I am The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa! I am a force of pure evil without a trace of good!” Said The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“No, you’re not,” Said Tipene, “You’re just a stupid teddy-bear!”
and then Tipene picked up The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa and tossed him over into a pile of sweaty gym socks in the corner.
Then Tipene went back to sleep.
“This isn’t working,” Said The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa from inside the pile of sweaty gym socks, “The puny mortal does not shriek in terror at the mere sight of The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa! How can The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa make this mortal see how terrifying and terrible The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa is?”
And then The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa had a brilliant idea, a brilliant idea that was as terrifying as it was terrible.
Tipene slept until he woke up. He woke up at 5 A.M. every morning to milk the cows, and today was no different.
“Come on, Tipene, it’s time to get up and milk the cows” Tane said, “or we won’t have any milk to put on our cereal”
Tipene rose with a yawn. He felt well-rested. Maybe that whole escapade with the annoying demonic teddy-bear that called itself The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa was all simply a dream, like the dream he’d had about the cute brown puppies.
But as soon as Tipene closed the door he was greeted with the most annoying noise in the universe. It was the voice of The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“You have a crush on the fat ginger kid, the boy named Andrew! Also you’re terrified of Spiders and Pirates! That’s right, mortal! The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa READ
YOUR DIARY! BOW IN FEAR AT THE MIGHT OF THE
TERRIFYING AND TERRIBLE LORD URSA!”
The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa said, and then Tipene stepped on him as he left the room and went off to milk the cows.
Later, The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa spat in Tipene’s cereal.
“Hooooooik, ptoi! The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa just spat in your cereal! Wince in disgust and fear as your source of morning nutrients has been spoilt by the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa!” Said the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“I can just go and have toast.” Tipene said.
The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa ran over to the pantry and forced the door open.
“Not if The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa pushed this jar of raspberry jam off the shelf and to the ground!” The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa said.
“Yeah, if you can’t lift a pocket-knife, I don’t think you’ll be able to push a jar of raspberry jam off the shelf.” Tipene said.
“Hmm… maybe The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa could roll over this jar of almost-finished marmalade off the shelf!
You would still have the jam, but you’d have a broken jar on the floor and that would be most inconvenient!” Said The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
And then, The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa ran to the jar of almost-finished marmalade and then The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa rolled it over to its side, and with great effort, The Terrible and Terrifying Lord Ursa rolled it off the shelf and to the floor. But surprisingly, the jar did not break.
This very much upset The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“Argh!!! This very much upsets The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa!” Said The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
Tipene was starting to feel sorry for this pathetic excuse for a villain. He turned to face The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“You shall fear me! I am evil incarnate! I am a horrifying monstrosity contained inside a child’s plaything! Why does that not terrify you? I am the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa!”
Said the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“Look, listen to me, Lord Ursa,” began Tipene, before he was interrupted by the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“I am not Lord Ursa!” Said the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa, “I am the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa!” Said the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“You’re not terrifying, and you’re only terrible in the sense that you’re terribly lame,” Tipene said.
“It’s not true! I am the Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa!” said The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa sadly, “I must be! I have to be!”
“Well, nobody is going to think you’re terrifying and terrible here; just very, very, very, very annoying. You know, I’ve got a little raft you could ride.” Said Tipene.
“What good will that do?” Asked The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“You’ll see,” Said Tipene with a knowing smile.
Thirty minutes later, Tipene and The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa were at the River together. Tipene pointed to a small little wooden raft tied to a tree. It was too small for a human, but quite large for a teddy-bear. It had a shiny red flag sticking up for a mast.
“Hop on, my lord. I don’t know where this river goes, but maybe somewhere out there you’ll find someone who will actually be scared of you.” Tipene said.
“And I will strike terror into their hearts and mock their pleas for mercy!” shrieked The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa.
“Yeah, sure, of course you will,” Tipene said, rolling his eyes.
And so, The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa got onto the raft, and Tipene put a crude paper hat on top of The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa’s head, and then he cut the rope and watched The Terrifying and Terrible Lord Ursa ride his little raft off into the horizon, and he never saw nor heard from the strange demonic teddy bear ever again.