Among the socially challenged: Bumpy and his pals
(The first day of spring)
'Hey you two, wake up!' Bumpy called to his friends as he climbed up to the branch where Humpy and Dumpy were sleeping in their tree, located in the north-central part of Koalaville.
'Huh? Oooh, it's you,' Humpy moaned, opening his eyes. 'Why are you bothering us at this ungodly hour?'
'Gee, Bumpy, huh-huh-huh,' Dumpy mumbled with his usual slow, low-voiced drawl and giggle, 'what are you doin' up so early?'
'I'll have you know that I've been lookin' out for our best interests. You'd think you two sloths would show a little gratitude,' Bumpy acted insulted.
'Okay, let's have it. What have you been doing?' Humpy asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
'Well, I just happen to have a plan that you're gonna love,' Bumpy began to explain. 'I heard yesterday that a number of koalas were gonna be doin' a census, writin' down the names of everybody here in Koalaville, and takin' note of the trees they live in.'
'You woke us up to tell us that? What's the big deal, anyway?' Humpy was a bit peeved.
'Just shut up and listen,' Bumpy went on. 'I was walkin' through the center of the grove just now, on the lookout for one of those census koalas, and I found one: Queezy.'
'Uuuh, he's Wheezy's brother, isn't he?' Dumpy asked.
'Right,' Bumpy replied, 'and I managed to get some valuable information out of that dumb koala. He told me that the new trees we'll be inhabitin' in Eucalyptus Grove are gonna correspond to the locations of the trees we have here. If our tree here is, for example, 145 yards from the eastern border, and 290 yards north of the southern tip, then that will be more or less the location of the new tree we get over there.'
'Gee, Bumpy, huh uh huh, I don't think I know what you're talkin' about,' Dumpy muttered.
'Never mind. Let me make it a little easier for you. If somebody had a first-rate tree here, he will get a first-rate tree there, but if his tree here isn't too great, the one he gets there won't be too good, either.'
'Just our bad luck!' Humpy said with disgust. 'Our tree here is one of the worst in this part of the grove, so I guess we're gonna get stuck with a lousy one over in Eucalyptus Grove, too.'
'Oh, not so fast,' Bumpy flashed a sly smile. 'We would get stuck with a lousy tree if I weren't so smart.'
'Whad'ya mean, Bumpy?' Dumpy asked.
'Well, that Queezy knows we live up here in the north, just west of center, but…' Bumpy inserted a short pause for dramatic effect, 'he doesn't know just what tree we live in.'
'So?' Humpy asked, seemingly bored.
'So, stupid, his ignorance is gonna be our gain!' Bumpy retorted.
'Hey, pal, if you don't get to the point soon, I'm gonna go back to sleep.'
'Just keep listenin', fool!' Bumpy said angrily. 'Believe me, you'll thank me later. Here's what I did: I said to him, 'Well Queezy, I guess you really have to work hard to find out exactly where each and every koala lives – walkin' around all day, askin' names, writin' down locations of trees…' Then he said: 'Yeah, it's really tiring.' So I said, 'My friend, I'm gonna make your job a little easier. Lemme tell ya what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go back to our tree, make a little sign with our names on it – Bumpy, Humpy and Dumpy – then I'll stick it to the trunk of the tree. That way, when you stop by, you won't have to bother to ask us a lot of questions, or go around lookin' for us if we're not home. You'll know it's our tree, and you'll only have to write down its position, and our names.' Then he said, 'Wow, Bumpy, that's really nice of you! If every koala did that, my job would be a lot easier.' Hah hah hah!'
'So, you're doin' that Queezy a favor. Why should we jump for joy? He's no friend of ours!' Humpy said with a touch of criticism.
'Oh, I have to explain everything to you two numbskulls. Don't you get it? All we have to do now is make a little sign with our names on it, then instead of tacking it to our tree, we find a nearby tree that's uninhabited, yet a lot better than ours, and we stick it on that tree instead!'
Humpy and Dumpy were silent for a moment as they pondered the idea.
'Oh, yeah,' said Humpy when he realized what Bumpy was getting at, 'that way, Queezy will think we have a really good tree, and so we'll get a really good tree in the same location over in Eucalyptus Grove!'
'Exactly! And I know just the tree where we should hang up the sign,' Bumpy continued, pointing towards the east. 'That one, two trees down, the one we always wanted.'
'Oh, the one that Grandaddy didn't want us to have, since he said so many koalas wanted it, that they might get mad if we got it, huh uh huh,' Dumpy remembered.
'Right! The best quality tree in this sector, and nobody lives in it. Well, when Queezy comes around this afternoon and sees the sign we're gonna make, he'll think we live in it!'
'Bumpy, I'm afraid I owe you an apology,' Humpy admitted. 'That plan is really clever!'
'I knew you'd come around,' Bumpy replied in a tone of confident haughtiness. 'Now alls we gotta do is make a sign with our names on it, and go over and tack it up to the trunk of that tree.'
'Gee, that sounds easy enough, huh uh huh. Lemme get somethin' to write with,' Dumpy said as he climbed up to the branch above, fetched a piece of paper and a pencil from a small box they kept there, and then came back down to the bough where his friends were sitting.
'Okay, let's get started,' Bumpy suggested, taking a piece of paper and placing it on a small board he had placed on his lap. 'First, Bumpy…' he began to write.
'Hey, wait a minute,' Humpy said when he saw what his friend had scribbled, 'you wrote 'Bumpy' with a 'P'.'
'Yeah, sure. My name has a 'P',' Bumpy defended himself.
'But not at the beginning. You wrote 'Pumbe', not 'Bumpy'. The 'B' should be at the beginning,' Humpy corrected him.
'Oh yeah, right,' Bumpy stammered. 'The light here is pretty bad, too much shade. No wonder I got those letters mixed up.' He turned the paper over and wrote his name again, this time carefully naming each letter immediately before writing it. 'B…U…M…P…E.'
'That should be 'Y', not 'E',' Humpy once again pointed out a mistake.
'Oooh, I'll never understand why an 'E' sound should be the 'Y' letter. It just ain't natural, but okay,' Bumpy said angrily, then added, with a hint of insulted arrogance while he crossed out the 'E' and added a 'Y', 'Let's just hope you're right!'
Okay, now let me write mine,' Humpy took the paper and wrote his name below Bumpy's. 'Now you, Dumpy.'
'Uh, gee Humpy, maybe you could write mine for me…' Dumpy suggested shyly; the challenged koala had never quite been able to learn how to form the letters, and much less to spell.
'Oh yeah, sure,' Humpy said as he wrote Dumpy's name. 'There we are!'
'Okay, now we need a tack,' Bumpy said.
'Oh, I brought one down from the other branch,' Dumpy told them. 'Huh uh huh, where did it go?'
They all carefully searched the limb, but could not find it anywhere.
'No matter, we'll find another way to hang up the sign. Let's go,' Humpy said, and they all climbed down the tree. Upon reaching the ground, Humpy had an idea. 'Wait a minute.
We should add something to the sign. Let's write 'live here' after our names. 'Bumpy, Humpy and Dumpy live here', just so it's really clear.'
'Good thinkin'!' Bumpy agreed. 'Let's have a seat here on the ground, and you can add it to the sign.' He sat down on the grass next to the tree, but immediately jumped up with a loud cry. 'Ooooowww!' Reaching behind him, he pulled something out of his backside.
'Huh uh, gee Bumpy, I think you found that tack, huh uh huh,' Dumpy chuckled.
***
About an hour later, the three saw Queezy heading towards the beautiful tree on which they had tacked their sign. Not wanting to have to answer any questions, they hid behind another tree, peeking out to see what he would do. Queezy approached the tree, saw the sign, wrote something down in a notebook, then looked around in all directions, no doubt estimating the tree's approximate position in that sector of the grove. He then walked eastwards, stopping at other trees to talk to the koalas who lived in them.
'Wow! It looks like it worked,' Humpy exclaimed. 'He just wrote everything down, and didn't suspect a thing!'
'Hehehe, just the way I planned it,' Bumpy grinned with satisfaction.
'Gee, Bumpy, I guess we're gonna have a really nice tree when we move over to Eucalyptus Grove, huh uh huh,' Dumpy smiled.
'Yeah, we no doubt will! And till then, the two of you can think about how you're gonna express your gratitude.'
'Oh, I see what you're gettin' at,' Humpy replied. 'Okay, how about if we head over to Koalatown to celebrate. I've got a bag of walnuts that we can trade, so the eucalyptus liquor is on me!'
'My friend, that's the best suggestion I've heard all day!' Bumpy responded contentedly.
'Let's get those walnuts of yours and head over there now, so that we can make the most of the day, not to mention the night, for I think this might be a good time to look up those three lovely females we met there a few weeks ago, remember?'
'Gee, Bumpy, huh uh huh, how could we forget them?' Dumpy chuckled as the three walked away, feeling satisfied with the clever trick they had managed to pull off.