• "The war of Magic Meadow?" Billie repeated, dumbfounded as he walked through the concrete doors and into the suddenly silent forest.
    "Yep. It's been going on now for about 12 maybe 13 years, it has."
    "Can you help me find my Daddy? He was just behind me right before I walked into the meadow, and then he was gone and those concrete walls were there. I don't know where he is."
    "What's a daddy?" Chester asked from the front, still leading the way deeper into the mysteriously silent forest.
    "You mean you don't have one?" Billie asked incredulously, loking around at the other children. "None of you have a daddy?"
    The kids all shook their heads and stared at Billie as if he had four heads.
    "You done gone lost your brain or something, Bolli?" The boy in front of Leslie asked, raising his eyebrow at Billie.
    "I hope not. Maybe this is a dream... A really crazy dream." Billie mumbled to himself, not paying attention to where he ws walking and ran straight into a tree.
    "He done gone blind!" the boy shouted again and the rest of the line laughed except for Leslie.
    "You alright?" She called, dashing over to where Billie had fallen.
    "No." Billie stared into space and shook his head. Leslie's face swam in and out of Billie's brain, her amazing orange eyes the last thing he saw before he slipped into a state of unconsciousness.
    "That boy done did it all, now ain't he, Chester? He gone and bit that there dust now ain't he?"
    Billie was laying on a suprisingly soft and smooth surface, but he felt as though he weighed a thousand pounds and couldn't move. So he tried to open his eyes instead, but found that they too weighed more than normal.
    "Da- okila?" He grumbled, trying to sit up and discovered that his brain felt like it had been slammed against a wall. "Ouch."
    "You just sit still, Bello, you done it now, you have. Gone and knocked yourself on that there tree, you did. Got yourself a bump the size of a Knrackle, you done." Leslie muttered, and Billie could feel something wet and cold being layed on top of his eyelids, but he didn't complain, it felt nice.
    "That boy done gots to be the dang-gonest klutz in the whole wide Eals!" It was the same boy that had made fun of Billie when he ran into the tree at it again.
    "Did you see the size of that there bruise he got on his forehead Juss?" A girl asked excitedly in a high-pitched squeaky voice.
    "He looked like the done-gone dead, he did." Chester added.
    "Oh shush, you'll be leaving him alone, you will. He gots to get his sleep, he does. Done himself a Bracket, he done." Leslie scolded.
    Billie tried to thank her, but he was still having trouble speaking properly, so all that came out was,"Tak oo..."
    "Right. Sleep, now Bello. Sleep." Billie could feel water trickling on his stomach, then he felt nothing. He was drifting quickly off to untroubled, peaceful dreams.

    "Bello? You waked up yet?" Leslie was shaking Billie's arm roughly, trying to rouse him.
    "Nuh uh! No... Fine. Yea, I'm awake. Wow! I feel great, thanks Leslie!" Billie opened his eyes and sat up, flexing his arms and stretching.
    "Glad to hear it. You hungry, Bello? We done made some reorgs for you. Old Vlurso recipe, been passed down by them there leaders, all the way from General Klesser, it has. Eat on up, Bello, we gots to get on back to that there meadow, we gots to get the sick and done-gone hurt people better, we do."
    "Reorgs?" Billie repeated questioningly, looking at her for an explanation.
    "Yea! Don't you go on telling me you ain't done gone heard about no done gone reorgs afore!" Leslie wheeled Billie out of the coffin and into a chair, forcing a sturdy leaf full of redish, lumpy mashed potatoes.
    "No spoon?" Billie asked, looking around him for some form of silverware.
    "Spoon? Bello, you is a strange boy, you is. Here, take the felsek there. Hurry on up now, I don't want to let Chester and Juss get all the good ones. They done left yesterday when you was zonked. Hurry!" Leslie ate her own plate of reorgs at top speed, then sighing exasperately when she looked at Billie and found that he still hadn't touched his plate, but was staring at the food on it as though it might have been a plate of poison.
    "It ain't gonna bite you, dang gone it!" Leslie yelled, rolling her eyes.
    Billie lifted the felsek that Leslie had given him, sort of a mix between a knife and a fork, and stuck it into the mass of red. He pulled it up to his mouth and plopped it in cautiously, tasting it and swirling it around experimentally before swallowing. It tasted like mashed potatoes. BIllie ate the rest of his food quickly and followed Leslie out of the tree and down the path to the Magic Meadow.
    "Is the war still going on?" He asked her when they had reached the door that led into the meadow.
    "Course, they ain't done it in 12 years then they sure as hev and done it in 2 days! You is some kinda fool, Bello." Leslie shook her head and opened the door.
    A roar of sound met Billie's ears and he clapped his hands over them, stumbling forward into the meadow where the various mystical creatures were still battling their hearts out (if they had any) just like when Billie had first arrived.
    "Watch yourself now, Bello! Get outa the way there!" Juss yelled impatiently as Billie almost stepped on the hoof of the centaur he was working on.
    "You done finally got better, but you just the same old klutzo, Bello." Juss sighed, sprinkling a pinch of sparkling dust on the centaur's hoof and straightening up to look at Billie. "Now you just get yourself over to that there side, and stay outa the way, you hear? Don't do nothing but walk and then don't do nothing but sit. Got that there instructions, Bello?"
    "Sure... and my name's Billie. Not Bello."
    "Right, Belli. Sorry, now go! We ain't gots none time to waste, gots it?" Juss shoved Billie forward, closer to the side that he had directed Billie to go to earlier.
    "Juss! What you done sent him there for? He's gonna head right into the gargoyles!!! BELLO!!! YOU DONE GET YOURSELF BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!!! Honestly Juss!" Leslie waved her arms and screamed "Bello!" until Billie was right in front of her.
    "Leslie, you don't gots to shout no done-gone more! Belli be standing right there in front of your face!!! Gorsh danged, are you blind girl!!!" Juss yelled, shaking Leslie by the shoulders until she calmed down and stopped shouting.
    "Oh, I done-gone sorry, Juss. What you been calling Bello right then?"
    "He gone and said his name be Belli. Told me his done-gone self, he did."
    "I been calling you the wrong thing this whole time, Bello, I mean Belli? Sorry."
    "No, my name is Billie. Bi-llie. Billie. Not Bello or Belli, Billie."
    "Billie? That's a gorsh damned name, that is!" Juss yelled, leaping backwards, away from Billie.
    "It's what?" Billie looked at Leslie for support, but she was with Juss.
    "No, Belli! You ain't gots to be! You ain't gots to be darned!!! You can done change your darned name, you can, you ain't gots to be darned!!!" She was shaking Billie by the shoulders, looking him square in the eye. "You can be anything, anything, but Billie! You ain't gots to be darned!!!" Leslie was shrieking, her nose barely an inch from Billie's, still shaking him like a doll.
    "Belli's good." Billie said, wide-eyed as Leslie stopped shaking him and backed away.
    "Good, Belli. You ain't to be done gone darned. You can be good like the rest of us." Leslie bent over a unicorn bleeding black blood from it's horn behind her, taking deep breaths to calm herself down.
    "You'll be damned anyway for even saying a think like that, you will. Belli, you were 'upposed to be good, then you done gone ruined it just like everything else, you did." Juss shook his head and went back to the centaur he was working on.
    "Gorsh damned, Belli! Gorsh damned."