Soda and her friends had been trapped in Minj Chateau for three long stinky days. After dinner on the third night (some owl pellets she turned into cockadoodoo nuggets) Mallory took an accordion from a big cupboard and played such loud and dreadful music that her prisoners were all thankful when at last she stopped and said she was going to bed.

  After cautioning the belchkins to behave themselves during the night, she picked up the cage containing Edwige Kenchington (her favorite, due the Edwige belchkin’s unique mandible mouth and four arms) and, going to the door of her bedroom, commanded it to open. Just then, however, she remembered she had left her accordion out, so she went back for it and put it away in the closet, and while her back was turned the Soda belchkin slipped through the open door into her bedroom and hid underneath the bed, among dust bunnies the size of actual bunnies. The chestikull, being sleepy, did not notice this, and entering her room she made the door close behind her and then hung the bird-cage on a peg by the window. Then she began to undress, first taking off the filthy bath robe and kicking off the filthy slippers. Then she removed the dingy white brassiere and laid it over the bedpost, where it was within easy reach of her pudgy pink hand.

  As soon as Mallory was in bed she clapped twice and the lights all went out. Soda crouched under the bed and waited patiently until she heard the chestikull snoring. Then she crept out and in the dark felt around until she got hold of the giant brassiere, which shrunk down to her size as soon as she touched it. She at once put it on over her flat cyanotic belchkin chest.

  Next, Soda tried to find Edwige, and there was just enough brown moonlight showing through the window to enable her to see where the cage hung. Belchkin Soda sprung upon a nearby chair and tried to lift the cage from its peg, but it slipped and fell to the ground, opening with a clatter.

  This noise wakened Mrs. Minj, who gave a wild cry and sprang out of bed with one bound.

  Soda sprang to the floor and she and the now-liberated Edwige rushed to the door. "Open!" Soda belched loudly, and at once the door obeyed and swung open. The impish belchkins dashed through the doorway, and before Mallory could reach the door it slammed shut and imprisoned her in her own bed-chamber!

  The noise she made, pounding upon the door, and her yells of anger and dreadful threats of vengeance, filled all our friends with terror, and Soda was so excited that in the dark she could not find the outer door of the hall. But Cydroidobot the Molybdenum Belchkin could see very nicely in the dark, so he guided his friends to the right place and when all were grouped before the door Soda commanded it to open. The enchanted brassiere proved as powerful as when it had been worn by Mallory Minj, so a moment later they had rushed through the passage and were standing in the fresh night air outside the chateau, free to go wherever they willed.

  "Quick!" belched Edwige; "we must hurry, or Mallory may find some way to recapture us!”

  “Piddily-Cum-a-Zeer,” sing-songily belched Chunks, “Let’s get out of here!"

  So they set off moving as swiftly as they could, and for a long time they could hear the yells and struggles of the enraged imprisoned chestikull. The belchkins were small, but they could run over the ground very swiftly, so they were not very long in reaching the ridge that led out of the valley. When they had passed this ridge and descended into the next valley they stopped to rest.

  "I believe we are safe, now," belched Edwige, "for Mallory dares not go outside of her own valley, for fear of being captured by her enemies.”

  “Good,” belched Cydroidobot. “We may take our time to consider what to do next."

  "I'm afraid poor Mallory will starve to death, if no one lets her out of her bedroom," belched Soda, who had a kind heart. "We've taken her enchanted brassiere away, and now her door will never open."

  "Don't worry about that," advised Edwige. "Mallory has plenty of thaumaturgy left to console her."

  "Are you sure of that?" asked the cyanotic belchkin.

  "Yes, for I've been watching her for weeks," belched Edwige. "She has six thaumaturgic kidney stones, and a thaumaturgic ring which she wears on her big toe and which is invisible to all eyes except those of a hoo-hoo, and sixteen thaumaturgic nipple piercings. So I am positive that she will manage to find a way out of her prison. Eventually."

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  "Well, we have escaped the big dork-butt, to be sure," belched Chunks, "but we’re still belchkins!” Soda belched:

  “How are we going to get rid of these shapes, and become ourselves again?"

  None could answer that question. They sat around brooding over the problem, until the four-armed belchkin fell asleep. Seeing this, the cyanotic belchkin curled up on the ground and also slept, and the molybdenum and chunks belchkins did not disturb them until morning came and it was broad daylight.

  "I'm hungry," belched Soda, when she wakened, for her backpack full of alien feces had been left behind at Minj Chateau.

  "Then let us travel on until we can find some berries or nuts or a pile of alien feces for you to eat," returned Chunks. Then she farted. This was a strange experience for Chunks- in her normal form she couldn’t break wind and the feeling was strangely exhilarating. Being a gremlin-class yokai wasn’t all bad.

  After an hour of walking they indeed found a huge pile of alien feces.

  "Do you think we shall be able to break these enchantments?" asked Soda as she greedily ate the mostly solid, shiny purple feces.

  "Queer things happen in Bonertania," replied Edwige, also stuffing her mouth. "Mallory has declared that none of her transmogrifications can ever be changed, even by herself, but I believe that if we could get to Titiana or Nobgoblin they might find a way to restore us to our natural shapes using the enchanted jock strap."

  They were traveling quietly along, under the shade of the fleshtrees, when suddenly an enormous spiny lumpsucker leaped upon them from a limb and with one blow of his paw sent the little stiched-and-stapled belchkin tumbling over and over until she was stopped by a rotting fleshtree trunk. Chunks hopped to her feet and climbed up the fetid tree. Edwige shrieked and scampered straight up to the branch of another tall fleshtree. Soda, still wearing the enchanted brassiere, sprang up, caught a limb, and soon had also scrambled to a high perch of safety. Cydroidobot girded his loins, ready for a fight.

  The spiny lumpsucker crouched low and with hungry eyes regarded the little metal belchkin.

  "For goodness' sake, beast, what are you trying to do?" Cydroidobot belched.

  "Trying to get my brunch," answered the spiny lumpsucker with a snarl, "and I believe I've succeeded. You’re metal and of little use to me. But the others..." He lashed his rear end and growled as fiercely as any spiny (or non-spiny) lumpsucker could. "I think that bruised belchkin would be tastiest," remarked the slimy creature hungrily. "I'm pretty good at climbing fleshtrees, myself, so I think I'll capture the belchkin and eat it for my brunch."

  Soda, hearing this speech from her perch on the tree, became much frightened. So she at once began to scamper through the fleshwoods as fast as she could go, catching at a meaty branch with her long belchkin arm and swinging her cyanotic body through space to grasp another meaty branch in a neighboring fleshtree, and so on. Before Cydroidobot could strike the lumpsucker it gave chase, his eyes fixed steadfastly on the cyanotic belchkin. Soda grabbed a desiccated branch that could not hold her weight. It broke with a sickeningly moist snapping sound and she fell to the ground, and the lumpsucker tackled her and said grimly:

  "I've got you now, brunch!"

  Soda remembered she was wearing the enchanted brassier, and in her terror she belched out: "Open!" without stopping to consider how this command might save her. But, at the word, the ground opened at the exact spot where she lay under the spiny lumpsucker, and her body sank downward, the dirt closing over it again. The last thing Soda saw, as she glanced upward, was the lumpsucker peering into the hole in astonishment, and the last thing she heard was the lumpsucker farting out of his hole in astonishment.