Mr. Chickee's Messy Mission by Christopher Paul Curtis

Author:Christopher Paul Curtis
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307488466
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2007-05-19T12:00:00+00:00

The Journey to H.A.L.F. Land

IT DIDN'T TAKE LONG to see why no one from Ourside had wanted to hire Marvin Surly-Guide. He was doing his job, but just barely. He was horrible at the Guide part of his name and absolutely great at the Surly part.

He wasn't telling the Flint Future Detectives much more than “Turn here” or “Can't you walk any faster?” or “If I was you, I wouldn't touch that.” (Which he didn't say until Russell had tried to eat something he found that was brown and gooey and smelled like corn bread, something that right after he took a bite bit him right back.)

Any questions Steven and Richelle and Russell asked were ignored or met with a roll of the eyes or a rude snort.

But it was Russell who finally seemed to get the guide's attention.

“Hey, how come we haven't seen any cute, teeny trolls with hair growing out of their ears or from between their toes? Every book I've ever read where people go to a strange world and take a journey there're always a bunch of trolls that come out to make them laugh. Seems like we've been walking long enough that we should've run into one or two by now. And I could use a good laugh.”

Marvin gave a small shudder and said, “Don't worry, there are plenty of hairy, tiny people where we're headed. Not very many of them are cute, though. Mostly they're irritating, goofy little twits. Sort of like smaller, older versions of you guys.

“I feel bad about you getting bit by that barfoodle, so I'm gonna give you one word of warning about those little people, kid. When we do run into one, they don't like it when anyone calls them trolls, they wanna be called Whizzers.”

Russell got his laugh. He put his hand over his mouth and said, “You said ‘whizzers’!”

Great-great-grampa Carter's dictionary said, “No, Russell. As defined in The Dictionary of Modern Ourside: Whizzer ([WHIZ-ur] n. Any of a race of diminutive, incomplete, trouble-causing, supernatural beings exiled from Yourside, found almost exclusively inhabiting various rooms in the H.A.L.F. Land sector of Ourside.)”

Marvin said, “Your talking book hit the nail right on the head.”

Russell said, “These Whizzers are troublemakers?”

“Of course they are, but don't worry about running into them out here, they're kept just about on lockdown.”

Richelle, Steven and Russell all said, “Kept?”

“Ooh, touchy little bunch of Yoursiders, aren't we? Yes, they're kept, but no, it's not like they're prisoners or slaves or anything. Nearly everyone you'll run into where we're going stays in different rooms and they're cool with it. They can jet whenever they want, but most of 'em just chill in their rooms.”

Richelle said, “Okay, Surly-Guide, I'm not taking one more step until you tell us where we're headed. This place doesn't sound like somewhere I want to go.”

Marvin turned his nose up at Richelle and said, “It's the place your cool talking book said, H.A.L.F. Land.”

“Halfland?”

“H.A.L.F. Land, two words. The initials stand for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Lost and Forgotten.

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