By: RedSwift
Chapter 17
Dale looked around. He was in the middle of a funhouse. Rakish clowns in bright colors brought out by the black lights glared down at him. Mirrors lined the corridor down to a door at the far end.
*Wowie Zowie!* he thought to himself, looking at the funhouse mirrors in front of him. They were his size, and he made faces into them, looking at his reflection stretched and pulled. He came to one and when he looked through it, he was wearing Chip’s fedora and leather jacket. He reached up, and pulled the fedora down over his head, eying himself with one eye, “Here’s lookin’ at you kid,” he said in a reasonable impression of Bogart himself. He smoothed out all the wrinkles in the jacket, and stood tall in the mirror. He tried doing an impression of Chip, but when he tried the reflection changed to look like Chip himself.
“Dale, look at yourself, you never give yourself any respect,” Chip said solemnly.
“But I’m not you, Chip! I can never come up with a good plan. All I can do is make jokes!”
Chip slapped his hand to his forehead and shook his head, “Dale, your ideas have gotten us out of quite a few scrapes, the secret is to,” and Dale felt a shaking, and a tinny little voice, “Unca Dale, time ta get up!”
Dale looked around him groggily, he couldn’t see anything but someone kept on shaking him, calling his name. For the life of him he couldn’t place a name with the voice, “Is it morning already, just five more minutes Ma!”
“I’m not your Mommy, silly, its Linda!”
Realizing this, Dale felt Foxy sleeping behind him, her wing over his shoulder protectively, “OK Linda, what’s so important?”
“You were yelling in your sleep, when I have bad dreams, Daddy wakes me up, so I thought I’d get you up.”
“Gee, uh, thanks Linda,” and suddenly he felt a call of nature, “Um, Linda, I’m going to the bathroom real quick, if Foxy wakes up, tell her where I went.”
“No problem Unca Dale!” Dale had no idea why she called him her Uncle, but he thought that if it didn’t hurt anything, why worry?
Dale stood up and yelled to the void, “I have to use the facilities, you said to let you know!”
“No problem,” the mechanized voice came back, and a crack of light from an opening door bathed into the room. When the light reached the cage, Dale looked back and saw Foxy contentedly sleeping and he saw Linda for the first time. He admitted, she was a cute little kid, in her T-Shirt and shorts, she looked like Darice except her hair was brownish and not the black Darice had probably dyed hers.
When he turned around, a large, burly rat was opening the cage while two others watched to make sure no one else tried to escape. They all appeared unarmed, but looked quite up to the task. Once the lead rat had the door open, the rat beckoned Dale over and the rats surrounded him and walked off with him in between them. They led Dale out of the opened door, where two more rats waited and pushed it closed with a grunt.
Dale was in a long, dark hallway with doors down both sides. Dale couldn’t see the end of it. The door Dale and his escort had just come out of was about in the middle of this hallway, and the guards took him to the left. The building looked like it hadn’t been used in years, various rodents had cut doors at the bases of a few of the doors, mold, slime, spider webs, and who know what else ran rampant away from the paths the guards were using. Glimpsing down the dark hallway, Dale saw a few mice and rats dressed in rags going about their daily business, either oblivious to the guards or knowing where not to stick their noses. Wherever this hallway was, it was a bustling area full of poor mice and rats living in squalor.
Dale wrinkled his nose at the stench, and when he went to glimpse behind him at a small child digging through a trash heap, his guards changed directions and jostled him to a mouse sized door. He opened it and went in, one of the rats bent over and followed him in, the other two standing guard outside.
Dale and his guard emerged a few minutes later and the guards used the same system to get him back to his cell. Dale didn’t notice any other sign of guards or where their mysterious host was at. After locking him in and closing the door, Dale found Foxy and Linda in the same spot they were in before, sleeping soundly. Dale went over and cuddled up with Foxy, she said something in her sleep and wrapped up closer to him, and quickly sleep overtook him again.
Disclaimer: The Rangers, and Foxglove are Copyright Disney. Used without permission but with the utmost respect. Darice, Linda, the guard rats, and Smiles are figments of my imagination trying to get out. You may post this story in any way, so long as you don’t modify my words or gain profit from it. (Boy, isn’t all this legal mumbo jumbo fun?)
Next chapter comming soon!