The Dusty Gulch Gazette
Special Dispatch
Operation Dambusters: The Pineapples Bounce, the Feline Force Five Return!
By Roderick Whiskers McNibble, Chief Investigative Correspondent
As the giant Ratty Airways freight carrier departed, we witnessed the beginning of the dambusting assault on Dusty Gulch. It was a momentous day.
In my career as a rodent roving reporter of some renown, I have witnessed some extraordinary events. But nothing on this scale. It was beyond comprehension, and no doubt never to be seen again.
I was witnessing Gulch history.
The sonic pineapples were about to bounce. The fightback had begun.
As we waited for the landings, I paused to clarify another issue. Some of our newer readers have asked why everyone keeps making such a fuss about Trevor's sweat and why it was needed for the mission to succeed.
A fair question. But before we answer that, we must turn the clock back. Let me set the scene:
Later that night, alone in his Austin lair, Elon stared at a leftover slice. Pineapple chunks glistened under the lab lights. A spark jumped - literally, from a nearby prototype.
While the laboratories were busy arguing about the vibrational properties of pineapple, something altogether stranger was happening in Dusty Gulch.
At the same precise moment, a young wallaby was struggling after his knees were confiscated to promote hopping equality. Fortunately, he was given titanium knees and went on to become an apprentice to a master plumber, known only as Dracula the Emu.
Every time Trevor wrestled another impossible plumbing job into submission, every time he thought of his beloved mother, microscopic traces of a peculiar mineral formed where wallaby sweat met hammered copper. It was later named trevorite.
The important part is this: trevorite in Dusty Gulch is not merely a metal.
It remembers rhythm. The gentle motion that Trevor had felt as a youngster in his mother's pouch as she bounded along.
An ordinary copper washer seals a leak. A trevorite washer persuades stubborn pipes to agree with one another. It coaxes water, diesel and power back into harmony.
Which is why Dracula could fit the washer.
But only Trevor could create one.
And until the sonic pineapples finished calming the interference outside, even trevorite was fighting the noise.
It had been determined that to recalibrate the WDP machine, a very large number of sonic pineapples could be deployed over the Gulch River and the strange water filled potholes that had appeared during the reality dysfunction. The bouncing technique, as immortalised by the legendary Dambusters, would send strong waves of vibration across the area, penetrate deep inside McFookit Peak and, like a metronome, restore harmony and rhythm.
Mavis and the team from the CWA were busy loading and reloading the hundreds of sonic pineapples that had been stockpiled in readiness.
From the edge of the airstrip I watched the orange Ratty Airways biplanes make their runs. The devices skipped across the Gulch River and the field of pothole puddles exactly as had been calculated. The vibrations travelled. Beneath McFookit Peak the interference in the WDP began to thin.
Deep inside the mountain, the trevorite washer began to respond. It could not create harmony while the interference persisted, but with each passing wave the strange mineral settled more firmly into rhythm. Dracula and Dusty had supplied the plumbing expertise and Trevor had supplied the one material that could do the job.
At the Wrong Tower the structure was still moving.
Dracula had the trevorite washer seated, but the residual interference kept the pipes fighting him.
The tower gave a long, low groan and leaned another degree. Trevor did not wait for the all-clear.
He went up.
The external ladder was the sort of thing normally used by people who enjoy having options. Trevor took it three rungs at a time, titanium knees locking and releasing with sharp metallic clicks. Halfway up, a section of railing tore free and fell past him. He did not look down. At the top, the access door had jammed. He put his shoulder into it, once, twice, then kicked the hinge with a sound like a sink spanner hitting a drum. The door gave.
Inside, Maureen McFookit was braced against the wall, one hand on a pipe, the other holding her apron strings clear of the mechanism. The floor was no longer level.
“Trevor,” she said.
“Maureen. Time to go.”
The tower shifted again. A fitting burst somewhere below them and sprayed water across the platform. Trevor got an arm around her and moved for the door. The ladder was worse on the way down. Every third rung flexed. Halfway, the whole tower lurched and the ladder swung out from the wall. Trevor’s knees locked. He held. Maureen held him. For three long seconds they hung there while the structure decided whether it was finished.
Then the pineapples’ vibrations arrived in force. The lean eased. The ladder swung back. They came down the rest of the way faster than was sensible and slower than either of them wanted.
Maureen’s feet hit solid ground. She straightened her dress, looked toward her house, and said, perfectly flat:
“Who has been in my bloody kitchen?”
Tony the Emu , hearing these words, packed his cook books and chef's hat and hastily scurried off to seek refuge in my wombat burrow. It was too late to amend my census return from 2 bedrooms to 1 bedroom.
Dusty, still underground, heard the line over the radio and closed his eyes for half a second. The washer had held. The pineapples had worked. The immediate danger had passed.
"Good," he muttered. "You can forge copper. You can machine titanium. But you can't manufacture our mate Trevor."
Then the radio crackled again.
Not from the tower. From a frequency that had been silent for days.
A voice - calm, slightly muffled, unmistakably feline - said:
“Pineapples received. Tower stable. We are moving.”
I looked at Mavis. She did not look surprised. Neither did Maureen McFookit.
In the Frangipani Grove, Feline Force 5 had finished their preparations.
Code names in place. Disguises in place. After weeks of preparation, they were ready.
Puds checked the paw-adapted controls one last time. The Australia Edition Cybertruck sat under the trees, roof-mounted Honklander elimination cannon secured, the Emporium’s gecko-and-drop-bear umbrella re-rigged as a rapid shield. Missy had the blueprints. "Mother" stood ready. Fugly and Ginger were already in position.
They knew the terrain. They knew the truck. Elon’s modifications had arrived in time.
Puds gave the order.
The Cybertruck rolled out of the grove and turned toward Honklander HQ.
Outside, the guns had not yet opened fire.
They would.
Maureen was heading home. And I knew she would not appreciate witchity grub leftovers in the fridge.
I made a hasty retreat.
The immediate crisis at McFookit Peak was over. The tower was stable, reality had returned, Maureen was safe, and the sonic pineapples had done their job.
But in the Frangipani Grove, Feline Force 5 had other business to attend to.
The Australia Edition Cybertruck was moving towards Honklander HQ.
The guns had not yet opened fire.
And inside a cabinet bearing the reassuring label “Does not contain sonic rolling pin so don't open,” the rolling pin waited.
I had a feeling this was going to be one of those days when a sensible rat stayed well clear of the action.
Operation Sonic Rolling Pin was about to begin.
This is Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, signing out for today. Stay safe, people. Things are about to get very twitchy indeed.
BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS
