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"Buckles and laces!" the little fellow exclaimed. "What have you
done?"
Jeffrey's grin was so wide now that it showed every one of his long,
pointed teeth. "Just gotten a little obstacle out of the way, so that
we can get down to the serious business of dinner-time!"
"Oh, no you don't!" And the little fellow began to dance. And the
fallen shoes around him began to dance as well, leaping higher and
higher into the air. And closer and closer to the wolf, Jeffrey
noticed in alarm. He backed away, but the shoes were faster. They
jumped all about him, raining down on him in a merciless mass of shoe
leather. The wolf fell to the ground, covering his head as best he
could.
It seemed like hours before the footwear stopped moving. Jeffrey
groaned as he climbed out of the pile of shoes. Something, it seemed,
had gone wrong. He couldn't remember the story going this way. He
moved a particularly nasty mound of boots away from his face, gasping
for air. But he forgot to breathe, for the first thing he saw above
the pile was another shoe, far bigger than all the rest, big enough
even for a man or a wolf to hide inside.
"Indeed," the shoe remarked.
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Jeffrey fell backward in alarm, slipping down again into the loose
jumble of footwear. He struggled back to the surface quickly, but
when he once again broke free of the sea of soles and heels, the
giant shoe was gone.
It must have been some sort of hallucination, Jeffrey rationalized.
It was all perfectly explainable. It was some sort of reaction to
being attacked by so much footwear. After all, what other reason
would there be for a shoe of that size to even exist? The wolf
decided he was better off not even thinking about it.
But the little fellow had escaped as well. And the wolf realized, now
that he had started thinking about food, that he was ravenously
hungry. Whose house should he blow down next? With an appetite like
his, there was really no choice.
"Once upon a time," the wolf whispered, and went about his work.
If anything, Jeffrey the Wolf was even hungrier now. It was making
him lose his judgment. He had startled a unicom just beyond the house
he sought, and the wolf hadn't even thought to chase it. But the
unicom no longer mattered, for Jeffrey had at last located the object
of his desire, a meal large enough to sate even his enormous
appetite.
"Doom doom," Hendrek hummed tunelessly as he built a wall out of what
seemed to be random objects, although many of them were long and
shiny. "Doom-de-doom-doom-doom."
It was then that the wolf realized that Hendrek was not alone. Well,
Jeffrey thought, all well and good, for every diet needs a little
variety. Or at least he thought that until he got a good look at the
assistant, who was busy handing Hendrek his building materials. The
other fellow was short and squat, and sort of an unhealthy grayish-
green in color, besides which he had the most horrendous taste in
clothes imaginable, wearing some-sort of orange and purple checked
coat. Perhaps, the ravenous beast considered, the large fellow would
be more than enough for dinner. After all, even a wolf as hungry as
Jeffrey had some standards.
The wolf left the concealing bushes to get closer to the object of
his hunger.
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"Doom," Hendrek noted. "We have a visitor."
His assistant looked up. "Oh, you mean that guy skulking over there?"
Jeffrey chose to ignore that remark, instead standing up straight and
doffing his cap.
"And a good day to you, too, neighbors," he greeted them cheerily.
"What a fine house you are building!"
"Doom," Hendrek agreed.
"Made out of the finest previously-owned materials available," the
incredibly ugly assistant added. "My previously owned materials."
"Doom," Hendrek replied, lifting an imposing looking warclub.
"Of course, most certainly!" Brax added hurriedly. "We have an
arrangement."
"Doom." Hendrek nodded. "The arrangement is he lends me his
previously owned materials, or I use Headbasher."
The wolf nodded pleasantly, although he was not really listening.
Instead, he wondered what would be just the right method of attack to
quickly subdue this large and certainly tasty Hendrek. Perhaps,
Jeffrey decided at last, if he strolled around a bit behind him. He
pictured the large fellow coated with a thin honey glaze.
"There he goes," the assistant remarked, "skulking again."
"Doom," the large fellow added, "he also appears to be a wolf."
"Are you going to hold something as small as that against me?"
Jeffrey tried to smile innocently.
"You know, Hendy baby," the assistant replied as he looked closely at
the wolfs long and pointed teeth, "perhaps it's time we went and
worked on the interior of the house, with the front door securely
closed and locked?"
"Doom," Hendrek agreed.
The two of them retreated inside. But all the wolf did was smile even
more, for they had gotten to his favorite part of the story once
again. He took a deep breath and called out:
"Come on and let me into your front room!"
But Hendrek boomed back:
"Not by the hair of my doom-de-doom-doom!"
Jeffrey chuckled. Now was the moment for the really good
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part. And this time, there weren't any of those nasty shoes around
here to ruin it for him.
He took a bigger breath: "Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll
bloooooow your house down!" And he took the biggest breath he
possibly could, feeling as though his lungs would burst right through
his hairy chest. He quickly positioned his snout once again for
maximum effect, and blew.
Hendrek's house didn't stand a chance. It came apart with a clatter.
Hundreds of shiny things flew into the air.
And then they started to fall down. Jeffrey looked up in the sky and
realized with a horrible sickening certainty exactly what Hendrek had
built his house with. For spread overhead, but descending quickly,
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