once i thought a bird couldn’t sing
once i thought of this and that thing
sing to the song of the wrong
listen to the words of a song

postcards pinned and pined
dog barked and whined
a tighter height is calling
a better night is falling

my tea is sweet and green
my teeth are bright and mean
walk, or go on your knees
exit just over there if you please

did you dream of spider string
did you sing of a dreamy thing
build your spire with clots and rust
make your bed with wire and dust

this means nothing, of that i am sure
just like closing a once-closed door
just like your home-made land
rhyming couplets feel so bland

say yes say yes
now that we aren’t who we were yesterday
biting my lip, time being bided
whatever bided means

then say no say no say no
no they don’t mean a thing

immune to gravity

no word for my strong desire
to lick your tongue
suck on your nose
bite right under your arm

no word for my strong desire
to be owned, possessed
controlled, suppressed
to have rules laid on me

i will be disobedient
i’ll brat you, purposefully
so you’ll get angry
and spank me

i want your strong hand
around my arm
i want to surrender joyfully
utterly

tell me what to do
when to do it
instruct me
oh, and fuck me, too

no word for all this
for my forbidden conceit
perhaps i’ll call it love
- that’s enough.

once when i was little me and my friend tom declared war on the sun because there had been this war movie on and they had declared war and so we decided to declare war and we got the dog involved and he was a General and then we asked dad to help us and he could be a General too but he said he wanted to be a Specific and the joke was so dumb he got demoted to dog-helper

at the big dance
and many questions come
where do i go
how long have i
why did you start

i lie about why
hedge around how
the truth of why
sounds utterly ridiculous

i give brunettes smiles
blondes i mostly ignore
turn down inviting looks
can’t be distracted, searching
for my future wife

ha ha you love me
you can’t help it, I can tell
when we lay on those cool sheets
you can’t hold yourself back

look at me and tell me you love me
ha ha you love me
ha ha ha!

i love you

Jerry went though life charming people into having his own way with them — and I was no exception! He held my heart in the palm of his hand from the time we were children, but unhappiness inevitably lay ahead for me … and I could only … blame it on my heart.

**

I love Jerry’s pose. You try and make me!

Super Monkey Group

The Blurting Beetles of Baloogo Loogo

Chapter 4

Written By

Mathew Ferguson

www.chaoticempire.com.au

mathew@chaoticempire.com.au

Chapter four

“We’re going to be red forever,” said Tia twenty minutes later as they threaded their way between some large rocks. The sun and heat rising up from the ground had helped to dry them as they climbed and most of the red gunk had fallen away. But everywhere it touched was stained bright red.

“Raroook,” said Po, scrubbing his hand against his fur. It came away clean but his hand stayed red.

“So we’ll be the ‘Super Red Monkey Endangered Animal Rescue Squad’,” said Max, opening a muesli bar and taking a bite. “If we ever have to rescue anything in the centre of Australia we’ll have the perfect camouflage.”

They continued walking, the jungle far behind them and the ground now covered in rocks and bits of dried mud. A few straggly plants grew in the shade of rocks, competing with patches of a fine blue furry moss.

“I think it’s time to call Cornelius,” said Tia. “If Foe is close then Toran must be too.”

“He’s in front of us,” said Max, scuffing the ground with his shoe. There, in the dried mud surface, were deep boot prints. They recognised the pattern on the sole immediately. Toran owned “The Natural Footwear Company” which sold “Natural” brand boots. The only thing natural about the boots was the rare extracts mixed in with the sole so it lasted ten times longer than a standard boot. The extracts came from the forest on a chain of islands near Malaysia. So far, Toran’s company had cut down almost all the forest and no one had stopped him.

They stopped and Max dutifully took a photo of the footprints, collecting evidence, although all previous attempts to have Toran arrested for environmental crimes had failed.

As if reading his mind, Tia said, “One day we’ll have enough to get him. Don’t worry.” She hit the COMMUNICATE button to connect to The Betserai. “Come in Cornelius,” she said.

“Here. How are you going?”

Tia looked at Max and Po. Everyone was dyed red, somewhat sticky, her leg hurt, the back of Max’s leg hurt (and his pants were ripped from the liger attack), it was getting hotter and their worst enemy had somehow gotten ahead of them.

“We’re okay,” she said, flicking a bit of red gunk off her finger. “But Toran has beaten us so it could be time to call in any local army, navy or whomever controls this little island. He might get away from us. Foe and some goons are behind us. A usual day really.”

“I think we’re alone on this one,” said Cornelius. “The mining company who own the island, OmniMine, refuse to talk to me. Nearby countries don’t care because there is nothing of value here apparently and the satellite link is still down. We have to rely on training, luck and good old fashioned gumption.”

Gumption?

Max raised his eyebrows. Trust Cornelius to use a word so old it practically had cobwebs on it.

“Okay, Cornelius old chap, we’ll use our gumption and save those beetles, by golly,” said Max, laughing.

There was a second of silence before Cornelius answered. “Ah, Max, Electro mentioned to me you particularly like learning algebra. He suggested we increase your mathematics load.”

“What! No no no!” said Max, waving his arms in the no way no how sweeps. “There’s no reason to play dirty here! We’re still on mission! I take it back, I take it back!”

Tia and Po laughed, joined by Cornelius over the speaker. Cornelius knew Max’s Achilles heel.

“Yeah, laugh it up furry-boy. See how funny you find it when you’re doing monkey maths,” Max said to Po, grinning and poking him in the side.

“What is the red cloud? You can see it for kilometres,” said Cornelius.

Max, Po and Tia shared a guilty glance. The cloud drifting around was the very opposite of stealth. “It’s … some local flora … exploding. Plants on this island explode. It’s fun, it’s new, it’s ever so great,” said Tia.

“Oook,” said Po.

“Oh yeah, it was Foe all right,” added Max. “He started throwing rocks at us while were in this giant exploding jelly corn cactus grove.”

“Hmm, exploding plants. That’s … fantastic! Get me some samples on the way back if you can. Brilliant! Seems things are under control for now. Contact me if anything happens. Out.”

The glance they shared now was a relieved one. “Operation Get In Trouble For Exploding the Mountain Corn has failed,” said Max.

“I like how he can be distracted by the lure of new weird and wonderful plants and animals,” said Tia.

Her watch speaker came to life. “Oh, by the way, we’re going to discuss your stealth training later. Cornelius out,” he said and clicked off.

“Sigh,” said Tia. “Okay, let’s find Toran.”

They followed Toran’s “Natural” boot prints, the temperature increasing and the ground changing to a hard shell of dried mud over a softer powder. Now they were closing on Toran they stayed silent, communicating with hand-signs and finger language. If Toran was ahead, Hench and more goons could be too. After a while the footprints faded out as the ground became soft and muddy.

“We’re close,” signed Max, watching their footsteps behind them fill in, “I can feel it.”

Soon they began to hear a faint plopping noise, like a boiling pot of water that was … goopy. As they approached they heard another sound mixing in with the plopping. It was a low bluuuuuurt.

“Now we know where the beetles got their name,” signed Tia.

“It sounds like burrito night on Sanctuary,” signed Max.

Pllluuuuuuuurup. Plub plub bluuuuuuurpt.

As they crept closer, they heard a familiar noise: Toran yelling at his crew.

“Dig faster you morons!” he commanded.

Following Po’s pointed direction, they sneaked behind a large pile of rocks and climbed up to look over. About ten metres away, Toran was standing with Hench and two goons amongst a series of slowly filling muddy holes. Near them was a large boiling pool of mud, with smaller pools spread all over the flat. Behind those and stretching around the mountain was grimy concrete covering the ground. Toran and his goons were splattered with mud, although Toran was far cleaner than the others.

“Dig there. And there. Hurry, those S.E.P.T.I.C. brats are on their way,” said Toran. Hench wiped sweat off his forehead (mostly redistributing mud instead) and started digging a new hole quite close to the large mud pool. The goons dug around the same mud hole.

Tia made the hand sign for “down”. They crept back down the rocks and held a quick finger language conversation.

“He can’t find the beetles. Maybe they’re hidden and he’ll never find them!” signed Max.

“We should find somewhere to watch from and see if Cornelius can get some local authority to turn up while they’re searching,” signed Tia.

“Hide! Foe is coming!” signed Po, diving down behind a large rock. Tia and Max followed before peering out. Foe was scampering up. Like them, he was stained red from the exploding corn cactus juice. They crept back up the rock to listen, Max recording everything with his watch.

“Did you see them?” asked Toran.

They couldn’t hear Foe but they saw a few flashes of rapid finger language and heard some faints “ooks” and “jarooks”. Foe pointed down the mountain and made a whooshing motion with his arms. Toran suddenly looked around.

“They must be close. Hey, S.T.A.I.N.S. or whatever you’re called – these beetles are for anyone who wants them! No one cares about this island and there is nothing you can do about it!” he shouted over the mud blurting and blooping.

“Um, Dr Toran, sir Hollergod … there are beetles,” said Hench.

Max groaned as blue beetles covered in orange stripes crawled from the boiling mud pools. As they emerged they raised their heads and took a deep sniff in the direction of Foe. One beetle gave a loud blurrrrpt and together they started crawling across the mud toward him.

“Containers! Containers!” shouted Toran as more beetles emerged from the mud pools. Hench and the two goons scooped up the beetles as they converged on Foe. As they did, the beetles gave out alarmed blurrrttps but still more beetles crawled from the boiling mud.

“It’s the red juice on Foe, they think it’s food,” signed Tia, watching as they filled four boxes with blurting beetles. Hench grabbed a particularly large beetle with silvery dots scattered across its orange and blue shell. It let out a tremendous BLUUUUUUUUURT and he dropped it in alarm. The few remaining beetles dived back into the mud.

“Done!” said Toran over the mud noise and the beetles’ warning blurts. Toran strode off with Foe, Hench and the two goons following. Tia, Po and Max hid until they passed. Once Toran was out of sight heading down the mountain, they jumped from their hiding place.

“What a disaster,” moaned Tia as they stood next to the bubbling mud pools. She used her watch to scan the mud but it showed up as one giant mass of heat. The mud temperature made it impossible to see how many beetles were left. Max scanned in Toran’s direction and saw four small blobs moving along. “Toran and goons are shielded but the beetles in the boxes aren’t,” he reported.

“Yaroook,” said Po, pointing at the mud pool closest to the concrete edge. The large silver dotted blurting beetle was standing up on a rock and wiggling its antennae at them. It let out a loud interrogative blllurp?

“Blurrrrtt, vablrrupt,” said Po. “Splurrrt qerrrupt tuurmpt barrrupt!”

The large beetle sniffed the air and let out an explosive series of blurts and bloops. At the noise, smaller beetles appeared around the sides of the mud pools. Max did a quick count. “There are twenty-three left,” he said.

Po pointed at the concrete covering the mountain. “Eurook,” he said.

“Loss of habitat does it every time,” said Tia, scanning the concrete. Underneath were covered mud pools, concreted over and unusable by the beetles. They’d been confined to these few mud pools since mining had begun on the island, Po explained. Including the four boxes of beetles taken, they were around one hundred of their entire species left.

“We’ll get your family back and we’ll get rid of this concrete too,” said Max. “Tell him Po.”

As Po talked to the head beetle (after explaining to Max it was actually a she) in blurts and splutters, Tia scanned down the mountain. The four hot blobs of blurting beetles were now 800 metres away.

Po finished their promise with a loud and long bllluuuurp, putting his hands against his lips and blowing hard against his palms.

“Done? Okay, let’s go. I’ve got a plan … I think. Run!” said Tia. They rushed down the mountain as the remaining blurting beetles sank back into their mud pools. Soon, the ground began to harden and footprints appeared. Max kept checking the face of his watch every few minutes, seeing the distance meter decreasing as they caught up to Toran.

“Wait! They’ve stopped,” he said, checking his watch. “Four hundred metres away and something is getting really warm down there…”

They walked to a large flat boulder and climbed atop it. Below them the ring of goop encircled the mountain like a river of glowing raspberry jam, mirrored in the sky with a hazy cloud of fine floating mist. Toran and his goons had stopped, Toran waving his arms around and shouting.

They took out their binoculars for a closer look. “Feeding time,” said Tia, zooming in on the goop.

“Way way way too many insects,” said Max. The goop was a teeming mass of insects crawling over each as they gulped exploded cactus corn. The red river edges were fuzzy with various multicoloured insects diving into the mess. As they watched, Toran yelled at one of his goons and thwacked him with a shovel. The goon stumbled forward into the goop and started stomping his feet and smashing his own shovel down to clear a path.

Max filmed this with a grim look on his face.

“I wish we could use tranquiliser darts,” he said. “If one of those insects is on an endangered list – he’s going to prison.”

Seeing none of the insects were attacking, Toran pushed the goon and Hench ahead so they stomped a path for him.

“Doesn’t want to get his oh-so-precious-Natural-boots dirty,” said Tia, glaring at Toran at he exited the far side of the river.

They climbed down from the rock and walked down, Tia scanning around them.

“Insects so far – no Ligers or anything else with big teeth,” she reported. “But that red stuff got a lot hotter. Weird.”

As they walked to the edge, a mass of insects crawled out and surrounded them like a living carpet.

“Stand still!” said Tia.

“Rarrook,” said Po with a shiver as a long centipede rippled over his foot

“Please not up my pants, I can’t have any more insects up my pants,” prayed Max. Four months ago on a numbers survey, three North London Tickling Mantises had crept up his pants and tickled him before Po had rescued him by shooting a can of shaving cream down there. The Mantises sounded harmless enough but they tickled their prey until it died, muscles clenching and convulsing, gasping for air. Max had spent four days with sore stomach muscles, jumping every time he felt something brush against him.

“Temperature still climbing,” said Tia “now at forty-five degrees Celsius.”

A minute later and the goop was now mostly empty of insects. “Fifty-five degrees,” reported Tia.

“Time to run through before it gets any hotter,” said Max. He checked his watch. Toran and his goons had crossed the bridge and were marching into the jungle.

“Okay, go!” he shouted and jumped into the goop.

“Hotook! Hotook!” said Po as they slopped their way through the translucent churned up mess.

“Not far, sixty degrees,” said Tia. Max reached the edge first and turned to grab a leaping Po who was grimacing in pain. Po landed and rolled over onto his back, putting his feet up. They were steaming. Max opened the water bottle and poured the cool liquid over Po’s feet as Tia stepped up with a leaf in her hand. She scraped the last bits of red off Po’s feet as he sighed in relief.

“Lucky we’re wearing … ouch ouch ouch,” said Max, his boots starting to steam. Tia threw him a handful of leaves and poured her water bottle over his boots and hers.

“Wow, hot,” she said, wiggling her toes in her now cooling boots.

“Marook,” said Po.

“Now ninety degrees and still rising,” said Max, cleaning the last of the goop off.

Behind them the goop was starting to smoke and a haze of heat rippled the air above it. Any insects not lucky enough to escape in time were being boiled alive as it started to gloop and blurt like the boiling mud pools behind them.

“Time to move – NOW!” said Tia, rising up like a runner from the starting blocks.

They ran toward the bridge as the heat from behind them intensified. They were halfway across when there was a loud whoop and a rush of hot air pushed from behind. As they stumbled off the far side they turned to see the goop had turned into a burning ring of fire.

“What is with this island? Exploding plants kill you and catch on fire? How is that good for anyone?” panted Max as he sat down on a log.

“I’m sure it works somehow,” said Tia, watching the fire spiral sparks high into the air to meet the floating cloud. “Maybe the heat pushes the cloud, which could be seeds, around the place so they spread. Or maybe the heat -”

There was another enormous whoooosh as the rising sparks ignited the cloud in a giant burst of flame. The push of hot air knocked them flat, Tia crunching backwards onto her pack. The cloud was on fire for an instant, twisting as the flame snapped and then it went out, leaving a fine mist of black particles drifting.

Tia jumped up and helped Po and Max to their feet. “Five dollars says those seeds in the air are now ready to grow. I bet you they only germinate after extreme heat. Five dollars, who wants to bet?” She held out a grimy hand but no one wanted to shake it.

“Botany-girl, we believe you,” said Max, picking bits of leaf out of his hair.

“Okay, there’s still Toran and the beetles but Cornelius will back me up later,” she said, checking Toran’s location. He was one hundred and fifty metres ahead and heading toward the first (or depending how you looked at it, final) chasm.

“So what’s this plan you’ve got?” asked Max.

Tia pulled off her battered backpack and opened the top. “I thought we’d use the Bolliverger’s Old … urgh … oh, woozy,” she said as a disgusting smell burst out of her bag. Po dived forward and threw the bag away from her as she started to sway on her feet. The smell lingered – this time a revolting mix of old cat food cans left in the sun, sweaty shoes and dried vomit. They walked away from it and Tia recovered. “It broke open in my bag,” she said, taking deep breaths to clear out her nose. “We’re better switch to Plan B or Plan C or even Plan D.”

“And what are Plan B, Plan C and Plan D?” asked Max.

“Plan Boy are we in trouble, Plan Can you think of anything? and Plan Don’t really know how we can get those beetles back without some kind of direct action,” said Tia.

“Larook,” said Po.

Tia and Max nodded as they started off again. They were going with their usual “let’s catch up with him and hope we think of something” plan. It had worked before … mostly.

They hit the cut bridge as the last of Toran’s goons swung across on a rope tied to a branch high above. He landed and Foe untied the rope from the branch above before scampering down the tree and disappearing. As they prepared to shoot up their own grappling hook and rope, there was an enormous CRACK as the tree fell, smashing off the edge and falling into the chasm. Toran appeared next to the stump, holding a laser cutter.

“Oh, if it’s not Team STINKY. Or it’s it SCURVY? And their precious golden monkey, Poo,” he said.

“Those beetles should be left to live! Give them back and you won’t get arrested … for this!” shouted Max.

“When I eat your golden monkey, I believe I shall roast him,” said Toran, licking his lips. “Perhaps with a little extremely rare Tibetan Squeaking Garlic. Three bulbs left. Soon it will be gone forever … like your parents.” He turned and vanished into the jungle. A hard green banana hit the spot he was standing an instant later with a dull thud. Po had another ready to throw, his fur standing on end as he vibrated in anger.

“Forget him. We’ll cross down there,” said Tia. About two hundred metres away another high tree branch loomed over the chasm. As they jogged down, Max hit the replay button on his watch. All Toran’s audio was recorded but where he was standing was jungle – except for the laser cutter floating in mid air.

“… like your parents,” said Toran and the laser cutter swung and vanished, followed shortly by a green banana thudding into the ground.

“Amazing camouflage,” said Max.

At the tree, Tia shot Max’s air-powered grappling hook up with perfect aim. It hit the branch and wrapped around. She swung across, Max and Po following. Tia pressed a button on the grappling hook and the tines let go of the branch, the steel cable retracting back.

“We’ve still got a chance,” said Tia as they left the jungle edge.

And saw the Ligers.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

The Blurting Beetles of Baloogo Loogo free eBook download

me and the bottle
lay here
watching you sleep

the bottle whispers
“ain’t she pretty?”
and i say yes

me and the bottle
walk out
leaving you to sleep