“You are my prisoner, and opposition is otiose,” said Nobgoblin, the Empress of Quirk Quadrant and the Royal Thaumaturge of Bonertania, in her sultry gravelly voice. “Lie still a moment, and rest yourself, and then I will carry you back to my wigwam.”

  “Why won’t you leave me the krud alone?” asked Gonorrena, still scarce able to speak plainly for lack of breath. “What the krud have I done to you?”

  “You have done nothing to me,” answered the thaumaturge; “but I suspect you have been guilty of several nefarious actions; and if I find it is true that you have so abused your knowledge of thaumaturgy and alchemy, I intend to punish you severely.”

  “I defy you!” croaked the old hag.

  Just then the Humpty Hump Dumpster, or “Humpster”, flew up to them and landed in the field beside Nobgoblin. Our friends were delighted to find that Gonorrena had finally been captured, and after a hurried consultation it was decided they should all return to the city in the Humpster. So the Chainsaw Raccoon was tossed aboard, and then Nobgoblin- still holding an end of the sloppy intestine that was around Gonorrena’s neck- forced her prisoner to climb into the dumpster. The others now followed, and Titi gave the word to the Humpster to return.

  “PHHHRRRRT!” said the Humpty Hump Head, spitting up more moldy sawdust.

  The journey was made in safety, Gonorrena sitting in the corner of the dumpster with a grim and sullen air; she kept rolling her eyes and sighing really loudly, for the old hag was absolutely helpless so long as the thaumaturgic intestine encircled her throat. The Humpster landed in front of Videotape Palace and the all lady army hailed Nobgoblin’s return with loud cheers.

  Our friends disembarked and led Gonorrena into the throne room.

  “Now,” said Empress Nobgoblin to Gonorrena, “I want you to tell us why the nefarious tremorroid Haight Squeezog paid you three visits, and what became of the fairy princess Titiana, who so curiously disappeared.”

  The old hag looked at Nobgoblin defiantly, but said not a word.

  “Answer me!” cried Empress Nobgoblin.

  But still Gonorrena remained silent.

  “Perhaps she doesn’t know,” remarked Nate.

  “Well,” said Ratsack, “what shall we do to make Gonorrena speak? Unless she tells us what we wish to know her capture will do us no good at all.”

  “Suppose we try kindness,” suggested Cydroidobot. “I’ve heard that anyone can be conquered with kindness, no matter how ugly they may be.”

  At this the old lady turned and gave him the stink-eye so horribly that Cydroidobot shrank back abashed.

  Nobgoblin had been carefully considering what to do, and now she turned to Gonorrena and said:

  “You will gain nothing, I assure you, by thus defying us. For I am determined to learn the truth about the Flatulenz Fairy Titiana, and unless you tell me all that you know, I will certainly put you to death.”

  “Oh, no! Don’t do that!” exclaimed Cydroidobot. “I dismembered a bunch of titmice recently and I feel really raw about it. It would be an awful thing to kill anything- even a dried-up old hag like Gonorrena!”

  “But it is merely a threat,” returned Nobgoblin. “I shall not put Gonorrena to death, because she will prefer to tell me the truth.”

  “Oh, I see!” said the molybdenum man, much relieved.

  “Suppose I tell you all that you wish to know,”. said Gonorrena in her unappealing voice, “What will you do with me then?”

  “In that case,” replied Nobgoblin, “I shall merely give you a lobotomy that will cause you to forget all the thaumaturgy you have ever learned.”

  “Then I would become a helpless old dork-butt again!”

  “But you would be alive,” suggested Nate Goiterhead, consolingly, “and you must admit that it’s a good thing to be alive.”

  “Especially if one happens to be thoroughly educated,” added B.M. Foulfinger, nodding approval.

  “You may make your choice,” Nobgoblin said to old Gonorrena, “between death if you remain silent, and the loss of your thaumaturgic powers if you tell me the truth. But I think you will prefer to live.”

  Gonorrena cast an uneasy glance at Empress Nobgoblin, and saw that she was in earnest, and not to be trifled with. So she replied, slowly:

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I will answer your questions.”

  “That is what I expected,” said Nobgoblin, pleasantly. “You have chosen wisely, I assure you.”

  She then motioned to one of her soldiers, who brought her a beautiful pewter casket. From this the thaumaturge drew an immense white gloopy pearl, attached to a slender chain which she placed around her neck in such a way that the pearl rested upon her ample bosom, directly over the Neptune icon on her chest.

  “Now,” said she, “I will ask my first question: Why did Haight Squeezog pay you three visits?”

  “Because I would not come to him,” answered Gonorrena.

  “That is no answer,” said Nobgoblin, sternly. “Tell me the truth.”

  “Well,” returned Gonorrena, with downcast eyes, “he visited me to learn the way I make alien feces and waffles.”

  “Look up!” commanded the thaumaturge.

  Gonorrena obeyed.

  “What is the color of my gloopy pearl necklace?” demanded Nobgoblin.

  “Why- it is black!” replied the old lady, in a tone of wonder.

  “Then you have told me a falsehood!” cried Nobgoblin, angrily. “Only when the truth is spoken will my thaumaturgic pearl remain a pure white in color.”

  Gonorrena now saw how useless it was to try to deceive Empress Nobgoblin; so she said, meanwhile scowling at her defeat:

  “Haight Squeezog brought to me the Flatulenz Fairy princess Titiana and begged me to conceal the rightful tremorroid.”

  “What did you do with the fairy?” asked Nobgoblin; and at this question everyone bent forward and listened eagerly for the reply.

  “I enchanted her,” answered Gonorrena.

  “In what way?”

  “I transformed her into… into…”

  “Yes!?” cried B.M. Foulfinger

  “Into what?” demanded Nobgoblin, as the old lady hesitated.

  “I transformed her into… into…” said Gonorrena.

  “Into what!?” cried Ratsack.

  “I transformed her into…” said Gonorrena.

  “What?” yelled Titi.

  “...into...”

  “YES?” said Cydroidobot.

  “We’re waiting!” shouted Nate Goiterhead

  “Into a boy!” said Gonorrena, in a low tone.

  “A boy!” echoed every voice; and then all eyes were turned to where Titi stood.

  “Yes,” said old Gonorrena, nodding her head and and pointing her long, bony, crumbly-yellow-nail-encrusted finger straight at the boy. ; “that is Titiana the Flatulenz Fairy princess- the creature brought to me by the man who stole her father Lympeter’s throne. That is the rightful ruler of Schmegma City and all of Bonertania!”

  “Me!” scoffed Titi, in amazement. “Why, I’m no fairy princess- I’m not a lady!”

  Nobgoblin smiled, and going to Titi she took his hand within hers.

  “You are not a lady just now” said she, gently, “because Gonorrena transformed you into a boy. But you were born a lady, and also a Flatulenz Fairy; so you must resume your proper form, that you may become the Tremorroid of Schmegma City and all of Bonertania.”

  “Oh, let Earwax be the tremorroid!” exclaimed Titi, ready to cry. “I want to stay a boy, and wander Bonertania with Nate! I don’t think I want to be a girl!”

  Titi stopped and collected his thoughts. “Or do I?”

  “Whoever you choose to be, we will all remain your faithful friends just the same,” said the Ratsack Golem.

  “Ladies are just as nice as fellas, anyway,” added Cydroidobot, patting Titi affectionately upon the head.

  “And they are equally good students,” proclaimed B.M. Foulfinger. “I should like to become your tutor, when you are transformed into a girl fairy again.”

  “This is heavy!” said Nate Goiterhead, with a gasp: “if you become a lady fairy you won’t be my father, you’ll be my mother!”

  Titi turned to Nobgoblin and said:

  “I might try it for awhile- just to see how it feels, you know. But if I don’t like being a girl you must promise to change me into a boy again.”

  “That,” said the thaumaturge, “is beyond my powers. I never deal in transformations, for they are not honest, and no respectable thaumaturge likes to make things appear to be what they are not. Only unscrupulous dork-butts use the art, and therefore I must ask Gonorrena to effect your release from her charm, and restore you to your proper form. It will be the last opportunity she will have to practice her thaumaturgic arts.”

  Now that the truth about the fairy princess Titiana had been discovered, Gonorrena did not care what became of Titi; but she feared Nobgoblin’s anger, and the tween generously promised to provide for Gonorrena in her old age- well, older age- if he became the ruler of Bonertania. So the old hag consented to effect the transformation, and preparations for the event were at once made.

  The first act of the decrepit old lady was to make the boy drink a concoction which quickly sent him into a deep and dreamless sleep. Then Cydroidobot and Foulfinger bore him gently to the front row of the throne room’s stadium seating and propped him up in a chair.

  Gonorrena squatted upon the ground and kindled a tiny blue fire of dried herbs and dried doodooberries, which she drew from her wrinkled bosom. When the blaze shot up and burned clearly old Gonorrena scattered a handful of alchemistic powder over the fire, which straightway gave off a rich, thick, violet vapor, filling all the wigwam with its odor and forcing B.M. Foulfinger to sneeze- although he had been warned to keep quiet.

  Then, while the others watched her curiously, the hag burped a rhythmical verse in words which no one understood, and bent her lean body seventeen and a half times back and forth over the fire. She concentrated and grunted and let out an epic wet fart. And now the incantation seemed complete, for the old woman stood upright and cried the word ‘Proljev!” in a loud voice.

  The vapor floated away; the atmosphere became clear again and a whiff of new car smell filled the flannel wigwam.

  From the front row arose the form of a willowy young lady, fresh and beautiful as a Cocteauber morning. Her eyes sparkled as two brown dusted diamonds.

  At this exquisite vision Titi’s old comrades stared in wonder for a moment, and then every head bent low in honest admiration of the lovely Titiana, the new Tremorroid of Bonertania

  “Your father, the Flatulenz Fairy Tremorroid Lympeter, named you. It was Gonorrena who invented the name ‘Tititarius’ but your true name is ‘Titiana’. So its totally cool that we still call you Titi, which is nice.”

  The girl herself cast one look into Empress Nobgoblin’s bright face, which glowed with pleasure and satisfaction, and then turned upon the others. Speaking the words with sweet diffidence, she said:

  “I hope none of you will care less for me than you did before. I’m just the same Titi, you know; only- only- only now I finally feel comfortable in my own skin.”

  Then she let out a cute little squeaky fart that smelt of snogberries.