How the Cookie Crumbles

Castle Norwood was quiet. Castle Norwood was peaceful. The students were asleep in their beds. The teachers were asleep in their beds. That filthy, putrid, disgusting rat was…..

"OWWWWWWWWW!!!" screamed a suddenly alarmed Doc Harrison as a large nosed, snaggletoothed, crooked tailed rat sunk his teeth into the man's hand.

"Curse you Schnozimo!!!" he shouted as the scraggly rat released its bite and scurried away out of site. "Can I not at least get one decent night of sleep!"

It had gone like this for weeks. The large furry man, who was much more fur than man, had become the never ending target of Schnozimo, the castle rat who lived in the walls of Doc Harrison's Office.

Harry just didn't understand why this pesky creature was going out of its way to make his life so miserable.

Well, yes the Doc had ruined the silly little rat's tale, but what real purpose was a rat tale anyways. Oh! And yes there was the small matter of the traps he had set and the time he attempted to make rat soup out of him in a hot tub. But really, why did the rat have to take everything so personal. Hadn't he been punished by all the vomiting that the rat had caused by poisoning the food and drinks in his house.

In the few weeks that had passed since Harry's last failed attempt on Schnozimo's life, he had been attacked endlessly at night in his bed. Worst of all was that he always did the same thing. He sunk those crooked teeth right into the Doc's right hand. He now couldn't get any sleep on the nights Schnozimo didn't visit either. Somehow or another, he was going to have to solve this problem. The very next day, his answer would knock on his office door.

*******

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Come in!" Doc Harrison shouted. "This is a clinic, there's no need to knock."

He turned around from a particularly difficult elixir he was brewing for phoenix burns. There was a group of 5^th rank students going out to Hedge Hoggian Cliffs today to do field research and there was no doubt in his mind that one of them would bungle the experience and come to disturb him with an injury.

He turned around to see a uniformed girl with a sash around her waist that held a few nicely sewn badges on the end.

A smile immediately lit up his face as he uttered three words as a question, "Dragon Scout Cookies??"

"Yes sir," smiled the pretty brunette girl with large hazel eyes. "We are selling to raise awareness about the injustice of creatures that are bought and sold through magical imprisonment and conjuring. It's a terrible crime how…"

"Yes, yes, terrible, terrible. Poor thingies. What do you have and how much are they?" Doc Harrison asked hastily.

The young girl was a little put out that she didn't get to finish her awareness speech, but she answered Doc's questions anyways.

"We have Batwing Crunches, Milk Spuds, Dippidee Doodahs, Fragilistic Fizzies, Hazel Heaths, and Bibbidy Bobbidy BooHoos all for the low price of 1 trollar per box. AND if you buy 50, you get a free commemorative Dragon Scouts crossbow."

"A Dragon Scout crossbow!!" Doc shouted. "I always wanted one of those, but you had to be member to get one. Why are they allowing them now?"

"Upgrades. We are getting new crossbows and so we are using the promotion to get rid of our excess inventory. So can I mark you down for fifty?" the girl smiled hopefully.

"50 trollars is a lot of money," Doc hesitated, "but for Dragon Scout cookies it's always a bargain! I'll take 20 Dippidee Doodahs. They're my favorite. And then 10 each of the Milk Spuds, Batwing Crunches, and Fragilistic Fizzies."

"No Bibbidy Bobbidy BooHoos?"

"No, my stomach can take almost anything, but I am Ghost-tose intolerant. I'd break out in itchy hives for a week after just a nibble."

"Okay, I'll be back tomorrow with your cookies, but if you pay now I can give you the crossbow," the young girl offered.

"Perfect!" Doc replied.

He paid the scout her money and took the crossbow in to play with. He was on cloud nine! He was aiming around at everything in his office with the blunt little bolts that shot from the crossbow. Candle Jar – shhhhmmphh, thunk , crash. Wooden bowl - shhhhmmphh, thunk , clunkclunkclunk. Metal bowl - shhhhmmphh, thunk, cling, clang, clang. He didn't stop until he accidentally knocked over an expensive vile of dragon's blood that started eating a hole through his desk.

"Whoops! I better be more careful, or somebody could get hurt." He then began to think of the words he just spoke and muttered, "Or maybe somebody should be hurt."

A picture was forming in his mind of a large nose, crooked teeth, and scraggly whiskers. Doc Harrison's face slowly split into an evil grin, and he said, "I may have to do something about these blunted bolts. They just won't do."

Doc spent the remainder of that evening and the next morning trying to sharpen the bolts. However, there must have been some kind of magic safety spell on them that did not allow them to be sharpened.

"Ah well, I'll just have to knock him out with the bolts," he said to himself when he heard –

Knock! Knock! Knock!

He shouted for the person at the door to come in, but they didn't. They didn't even knock again. He went to the door to see who was bothering him and opened it to see

Cookies!!!

There were his 10 Milk Spud boxes, his 10 Batwing Crunch boxes, his 10 Fragilistic Fizzies boxes, and 20 ……What?!? 20 Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo Hoos!! But this wasn't right! They had gotten his order completely wrong. It was supposed to be Dippidee Doodahs!! How could this happen?!? It was then that he saw a note attached on the side of one of the Milk Spud boxes. He pulled it off and read the untidy scrawl of words.

Dear Sir,

Here is your order of Dragon Scout Cookies. Because of the recent loss in popularity of Dippidee Doodahs, the organization has decided to stop producing them. We therefore have replaced your Dippidee Doodahs with our topseller the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo Hoos. We know you will enjoy them and we look forward to your future purchases when we return to the castle next year.

Thank You,

The Dragon Scout Roosting Building 11.

"This is ridiculous!" he shouted. "I am never buying from Dragon Scouts again!"

Which even he knew was untrue, because the other cookies were still delicious. He figured he could still use the cookies to bait Schnozimo now that he had a crossbow to shoot him with.

Little did he know, that Schnozimo had watched the whole scene with the Dragon Scout girl the previous day and knew all about the crossbow and Doc's allergies.

As the Doc now walked around the room placing cookies to lure out Schnozimo, the little rat himself was hurriedly crumbling up a couple of Bibbidy Bobbidy BooHoos into the Doc's drink cup. He finished just as the Doc was hiding cookies in the final corner. Schnozimo leapt nimbly off the table and under the chair.

Now, all he had to do was wait.

Doc Harrison got to his chair and immediately began drinking his Llamanian Lager, which had a funny sweetness too it today. He reached for and pulled out a Milk Spud cookie and chewed it happily. He sighed happily and washed it down with another big gulp of the lager.

There it was again, that odd tang. He scratched his ear as he looked down into the class and saw the crumbs floating in the glass.

Hmmmm….. he thought and scratched his nose, and then his cheek, and then his shaggy goatee, and then he saw them. Large blue bumps growing all over his skin

"Oh no!!!!" he shouted and jumped up knocking over his chair as he realized what was happening. "But how did this happen!"

And then he saw his answer. By knocking over his chair he had uncovered a hysterical rat who had been chuckling with glee. Schnozimo looked up into the burning furious eyes and stopped his laughter quickly.

"Time to go," he said to himself and scampered off. As he was running across the floor though, he heard a click, shhhhmmph!.

He tried to quickly change course, but it was not quick enough. Thump!! He had been hit right across his left thigh. He glanced back to see the menacing doctor reloading his Dragon Scout crossbow.

Doc Harrison was a great shot and almost never missed. He had clipped Schnozimo's leg on the first shot, and would only have one more shot before the furry fiend got to his crack. He had the rat lined up absolutely perfectly in his sites, but at the last moment he felt an itch just below his right nostril.

Schnozimo limped as fast as he could to avoid getting hit again and just outside his wall crack he heard the dreaded sound again, shhhmmmphh! He dove low for his crack and could feel the faint breeze of the bolt that crashed hard against the wall only centimeters away from him.

He heard Doc Harrison howl in anger and knew that he had escaped.

The Doc wisely burned the remainder of the cookies that could send him itching as he knew Schnozimo would take any chance he could to torture him. Although, the Doc was stuck with the itchy allergic reaction, he avoided bites for a whole month while Schnozimo's leg healed. He had not rid himself of the terrible pest yet. But at least for a short time he could get some sleep.

Sometimes, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Doc Harrison & Schnozimo - Hot Tub Terror

It had been six months, now since the first encounter between Schnozimo and Doc Harrison in the magical school at Castle Norwood. Six months since that low-down, dirty, crooked toothed, crooked tailed rat had ruined his perfectly peaceful life.

Since then, he had devised numerous ways to catch him or smoke him out. There was the blazing torch he had stuck into Schnozimo's tiny little crack in the stone wall, multiple standard mouse traps, and he even bought a tabby cat whose mottled coat had the coloring of a leopard.


The only results he earned from these attempts were scorch marks on his stone wall, broken traps that did nothing but feed the beast's belly, and a new furry pet that had absolutely no desire to chase rats at all.


The worst of all these results was the cat. He had originally named the cat Killer, in hopes that the ferocious cat would finish what he had started in trying to destroy Schnozimo. Now, however, he was thinking of changing the cat's name to 'Useless', because that's how the cat acted. Even though the cat had the hunting colors of the leopard, it was no more of a hunter than a ballerina in a tutu. All it did was eat, sleep, and poop everywhere but the litter box. Now there were two furry creatures in his life that he wanted to get rid of.

Schnozimo was still the one that triggered the anger in his soul though. It was time he tried a different tactic. It was time he tried the age old trick of deceit and treachery. Basically, he was going to lie.

He had heard about a relaxing treatment that some outside the magical world used. It was not a spell but rather a piece of equipment called a 'hot tub.' He did a little research and decided he would build one of these 'hot tubs' to lure in his furry foe and offer a truce.

He ordered the parts and after a week of waiting for supplies he went to work putting together a rat size hot tub. His of course ran on magic powders, not that unreliable electricity stuff.

While Doc Harrison was working on this, Schnozimo was actually planning an attack on him as well. He had certainly enjoyed ruining all of Doc Harrison's attempts to catch him, but it was time to make a strike of his own.

He searched through the Doc's medicines reading labels to find the perfect tool for his attack. Sleep medicine, no. Anti-itch cream, no. Vomit inducers, YES. Now this certainly had potential. A liquid that could make a person vomit was perfect really. In medicine it would be used to get rid of a food poisoning. However, in a personal feud it could be used as a TFT. A Tool For Torture!

Schnozimo went to work at night with the tiny little bottle. It was quite simple really because Doc Harrison was known to leave food around daily. He also didn't mind going back to the food to take another bite a day or two later. Schnozimo went around and put the vomit inducer on every scrap of food he could find. He also put it in the cups that were laid out as well.

He was about to head back to his cozy little crack in the wall, when he heard something rather strange. It was a faint bubbling sound. He followed the sound that he caught with his rather large ears to an odd hexagonal container with bubbling water in it. The oddest thing about the container was the large sign that extended from its base. It had one word written in bold letters.

TRUCE

And underneath the word was a small picture that showed a gray blob with whiskers relaxing in the water. Did that mean that he was supposed to get in a pot of boiling water? This guy was stupider than he thought.

Curious though, he did venture closer to check it out. He felt the heat coming off the water, but it was not as hot as he expected. He also noticed that the water was not really boiling but bubbling and moving in streams. He decided to take a chance and test it out with a dip from the end of his crooked tail.

He gasped in a quick sharp breath. It felt... It felt... It felt wonderful! The dull constant ache that he had been feeling since his tail was crushed was now soothed for the first time. He immediately jumped in to enjoy the wonderful warmth on his whole body.

As he lay there, eyes closed, mouth open wide in a peaceful calm, he did not notice the shadow creeping towards him until it was too late.

Clang! Click!

A large metal cage had been closed over the hot tub and then locked shut as it was attached. Schnozimo scurried and splashed furiously trying to get out, but it was useless.

"Moohoohahaha!" Doc Harrison let out a maniacal evil scientist laugh. "Finally! I finally got you! No more bite marks on the hand. No more ruining my life! You are now going to be nothing more than rat soup."

Schnozimo tried biting at the bars, but his enormous nose was so big that he couldn't get it through the bars to bite at them.

"I hope you enjoyed the hot tub," Doc Harrison continued, "because I'm about to turn up the heat."

He reached inside his pocket and produced the magic powder that made the hot tub run. He poured just a little bit more into the motor and the temperature began to rise, causing Schnozimo to sweat.

"Haha! I get to sit back and take my time," he smiled. "I truly am going to enjoy this. This calls for a bottle of bubbly."

He pulled a bottle from a nearby shelf and poured the liquid into a glass that already had something else in it, as well as a few floating particles. This of course did not bother Doc Harrison, because he always mixed drinks. They go the same place anyways he figured.

He drained the drink with a celebratory raise of his glass afterwards. "To conquered foes! I can't believe it took me this long to get rid of a rat anyways. To think, that.... to think that...."

He stopped quickly feeling a concern inside his body. And then before he could say another word he spewed out the contents of his stomach on the floor right next to Schnozimo.

"Whoa, I haven't thrown up like that in years," Doc Harrison said. "A little too much excitement in the thrill of the chase."

Then his face went pale. He looked at Schnozimo, and then ran for the bathroom. Moments later the sounds of his retching could be heard clearly.

Schnozimo wasted no time and stretched his tail down to the lock to feel inside with the crook at the end. He maneuvered it around inside, feeling each of pins and the spring over them. He almost had it, but he just needed....

Aha!! Perfect. There was a bone on the floor that had come up in Doc Harrison's first vomit from his drink. Using the bone and his tail Schnozimo picked the lock and got out of the hot tub, swearing to himself that he would never use one again. That was a close call and it was time to call it a night.

At least almost time to call it a night....

Doc Harrison was not so fortunate to be through with his troubles. First, the dirty little rat came in and bit him on the hand again while he was stretched out over the toilet. Then, he went on vomiting almost every time he ate for an entire week. That was up until he found the small empty bottle of his vomit inducer underneath the laboratory table. He put the bottle on the table and stared at it in his fragile and weak condition.

'No more Mr. Nice Doc.'

Doc Harrison & Schnozimo - Hate at First Bite

Harry Harrison, the doctor at Castle Norwood, was ready to have a really good day. Every day was actually a really good day though. So today would be a really great day. Today, a frosty winter day in January, was his birthday. So not only would he be doing is usual of absolutely nothing, but he would also be receiving gifts. To him, there was nothing better in the world than receiving gifts for doing absolutely nothing.

He counted off on his fingers the gifts he expected to receive. There were his parents, who always gave him a gift, even though he never even sent them a card on their birthdays. There was the faculty gift from the castle, because the castle was also a school. They always liked to make their staff feel special. Staff members at the beginning of each year would donate money into a fund for the gifts that were later distributed. Doc Harrison never donated money of course, because he felt that doing that would be paying for his own gift. He'd rather just receive the gift for free without paying. Which of course he always did.

Then there were the gifts from the students of the castle. Now, being the doctor at Castle Norwood was not just about runny noses and high fevers. Castle Norwood was a school where magic and weaponry were practiced. So children quite often came in with serious injuries like a bite from a dragon hatchling, hearing loss from a banshee, a broken arm from a battle mace, a near drowning from a water nixie, and the occasional accidental poisoning from an elixir gone wrong. Doc Harrison certainly was a master medic and always knew the best remedy for each situation. So for his talents, he expected a little gratitude. Students had a lot on their mind though with their studies. So, the week before his birthday he sent out reminder cards to the students about his birthday as well as subtle hints for what they could get him.

Dear Billy Bagwell,

I hope your dragon bite has healed nicely. It's a good thing I stopped the poison before it killed you. It would have been a shame to see you die an excruciatingly painful death. My birthday is next week and I am going to celebrate at Squiggly Squirrel's Tavern. It's so nice when I receive gift certificates for there from the people who appreciate what I do for them.

Doc Harrison
PS - I know you appreciate what I did for you.

The letters went on like this until he made sure he covered everything he wanted. If he wanted more things than there were students he helped, he suggested that some of the more serious cases provided two gifts. Yes, Doc Harrison knew today was going to be a great day. He had done all the preparation, and now it was time to receive.

He went down to the messenger's post to check on his mail. Normally, he would just send a student for his mail, but today was the one day each year that he didn't mind doing it on his own. No doubt the head messenger would be mad at him as he was every year for filling up the station with gifts behind the counter. However, as he walked up, he didn't see his usual stack of gifts piled up around the counter.

'Maybe they decided to give me my own personal storage room,' he thought selfishly.

"Doc Harrison, box 2302," he said with a smile.

The clerk looked up with a smirk and replied, "Just one moment."

This gave Doc Harrison an uneasy feeling, because they never smiled at him here. He put the thought away though, and figured maybe that was just their birthday present to him.

The messenger post employee came back and placed two small letters on the counter.

"Box 2302, have a good day."

Doc Harrison stood confused a second before regaining his composure and then blurted out, "NO GIFTS!?!"

"I'm sorry, but not today sir," the worker replied with a smile that implied she wasn't really sorry at all.

"But... WHY?" he complained, bewildered by the day's events.

The attendant just looked down at the two letters he was holding, suggesting that the answers were in there.

He ripped open the first letter from Earl Harbinger, who ran Castle Norwood, and pulled out a creamy white stationary with the castle's seal at the top.

Dear Harry,

You have been my friend now for quite some time, and we appreciate your efforts here at the castle immensely. You are a superb physician with many talents. However, I regret to inform you that some of your tactics have been wearing thin on the staff's patience. The hospitality committee that is in charge of staff gift distribution says you have not donated to the fund in your 23 years as a staff member here. They said you even went so far as to complain about how 'lame' your gift was last year.

The messenger's post has also informed me of the large amount of letters you send to students prior to your birthday to request gifts. Gifts are to be given out of kindness in this castle and not to be requested as payment for services rendered. Therefore I have collected the cards you attempted to send out to the students to avoid what I am sure was just a mistake in judgment on your part.

I continue to appreciate all that you do for this castle, and give you my sincerest wishes in hoping that you still have a wonderful birthday.

Sincerely,
Earl Harold Harbinger
Castle Norwood Steward

"How completely and utterly ridiculous!!" he shouted and stormed off back to his room.

How could this happen to him? How could the Earl do this to him? 'Double H' had betrayed him. He called the Earl Double H because they both had the same initials HH, and Doc Harrison had given him the nickname to kiss up to him when he first got the job. Now, he was just feeling double crossed.

Doc Harrison entered his office still perplexed by the day's unexpected outcomes and realized he had not yet opened his other envelope. This letter was from his parents. He could at least count on them for something. There was no gift, so there must be money inside he thought.

He ripped it open and reached inside the card for the money to grasp..... his heart skipped a beat.
For in his hand he held ... absolutely nothing. Nothing but empty air.

He opened the card that he would usually just throw out without reading to see a short note scribbled inside by his parents.

Dear Sweet Precious Harry,

We are so proud of you and the doctor you have become. We find that are little trinkets probably have meant little to you and that you have all you need these days. Therefore, your father and I have decided to use your birthday money to take a trip to the Terrigian Mountains. We love you dearly and hope you have the happiest birthday sweetykins!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Doc Harrison dropped to his chair. "What have I done wrong?" he cried out to no one in particular.

It was then, that he heard a tiny little squeak! squeak!

In the corner of the room watching this madness was a hideous looking rat. It had big ears, scraggly fur, crooked teeth, and an enormous nose. The one thing about the rat that was not hideous was its smooth, well-colored, almost elegant tail.

"What's your problem? Did you get cut off from all your gifts too?" the doc said grumpily letting his head drop back into his hands.

Now, Schnozimo didn't respond because.... Well, because he couldn't. He wasn't able to talk, since he was a rat. However, even though his vocal cords were not designed for human speech, he was extremely intelligent and could understand the human language. As a matter of fact he also understood, Trollish, Gnomish, and Elvish too. He even knew how to read and write in English and Gnomish.

He had heard poor Doc Harrison's laments and wanted to help him out. He knew a little bit about receiving punishments in life with his dreadful appearance. Before he consoled the doc, the first thing he wanted to do was let Doc Harrison know his name so he climbed up onto the doc's dusty old desk and licked his paw. He began spelling it out by wiping away dust with his wet paw leaving nice big block letters.

S C H N O Z I M O

Then he squeaked to get Doc Harrison's attention again.

Harry looked up at this little creature and noticed it pointing to the letters on the desk. "Shh... Shhnawwzzimoh," he pronounced the name out and the rat nodded happily.

"Well, what do you want Schnozimo? Would you like me to get you some cheese, and that way you can 'not get me a gift' on my birthday too?"

Schnozimo looked right him and pointed at his nose, his ears, and his teeth. Then, he caressed his tail lovingly. He was trying to show the doc that even though he had bad things in his life like most of his looks, there were still good things like is tail. He tried to show it to the doc this way, because he figured it would take too long to write it out in the dust. Then he held his tail and twirled around gently in circles as if dancing with it. He wanted to show loving the good things in life.

Now, maybe he should have written it down, because some things get lost in translation.

For what Doc Harrison saw was an ugly arrogant little rat bragging about a tail while he had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Maybe on a different day it would have been different. But on this day, a switch flipped in Doc Harrison and pure loathing seeped into the corners of his brain.

While Schnozimo was twirling like a frumpy ballerina, Doc Harrison reached over for his thickest, heaviest book on healing, 100,000 Cures from Cuts to Curses by Mother Goose. Today, however, this book would not be used for healing. He raised it gently into the air and slammed it down toward Schnozimo crashing onto the table with a resounding, THUD!!

"SQUEEEAAAAKK!" Schnozimo squealed in pain.

In his reverie he had not seen Doc Harrison raise the book. As the book came closer though, Schnozimo had glimpsed the shadow from the corner of his eyes and sensed the danger. He leapt swiftly to dodge the incoming attack and almost completely evaded the book. The last inch of his tail though could not outrun the swift strike.

Doc Harrison heard the squeak, and raised the book to see the injured Schnozimo in shock, gently lifting up his now crooked tail.

My goodness, he thought as his senses came back to him. Inconsiderate as he was, he had never been one to do physical harm to a person or animal for that matter. He quickly grabbed an elixir from his cabinet to numb the tail and a scalpel, which is a small operating knife. He had seen this type of injury on a centaur, half man/half horse, and knew that only way to end the pain to the tail quickly was to amputate it or cut it off.

Schnozimo saw the doctor returning with the knife and figured he was coming to finish the job. He scurried frantically, but was pinned by the doctor's right hand.

'Oh well,' Schnozimo thought, 'I cannot go forward with a ruined tail anyways. He may as well end it, for I have nothing left to live for.'

He felt Schnozimo's body stop struggling and rubbed the elixir on his tail to prepare to amputate it.

At this touch, Schnozimo looked up and saw the blade lowering menacingly towards his beloved tail.

With a renewed vigor, he struggled furiously against Doc Harrison's grasp. Wriggling his bodypartially free, he saw his chance. He opened his mouth wide and chomped hard down on to the outside portion of the hand holding him captive.

"YOWWWCCCHH!" the doc screamed, flinging the scalpel through the air and releasing Schnozimo at the same time.

Feeling his freedom Schnozimo scrambled off the table, past the two day old tuna fish sandwich and towards his home behind the gap of the third and fourth stone in the base of the wall. He sat there panting heavily as the adrenaline of the events slowly wore off and the pain slowly grew. He looked down at his tail that was so gloriously beautiful before. It now had a sharp right angle bent into its last inch. Not only that, the elixir that was being used to numb the tail had stained the end a deep purplish black color that made it look as if it were rotten. He was no longer the beautiful tailed Schnozimo perfectly pleased with his life. He was now the crooked tailed Schnozimo and had a new goal. It was not to share the tale of his now inglorious tail, but to get revenge on the evil doctor that he had so kindly tried to help.

Little did he know, Doc Harrison's thoughts were almost exactly the same. His lack of birthday presents had been forgotten, and he had a new mission in life. Catch Schnozimo and make him pay for everything that went wrong with this day. For it was surely the rat that had cursed this day and getting rid of him would bring back all of the doc's formal glory.

The two beings, rat and man, had a single thought going through both of their minds.

'I will get revenge!'

Schnozimo and Doc Harrison - Meet the Doc and Schnozimo

Have you ever found that perfect one in life? The one that keeps you up at night just constantly thinking about them. That one true being that makes bile rise to the back of your throat in a feeling of pure hatred and loathing. Well that's what Harry Harrison of Castle Norwood found on a frosty winter morning in January that just happened to be his birthday. Doc Harrison, that's what people called him because he ran the clinic, was a truly happy man. Truly happy because most of the time he did absolutely nothing. He lived in his office and pretty much never ever left. Why would he want to leave? The castle he lived in was a school and a school had students. Now, you may think of students as energetic little learners, but he saw them as the perfect little servants. He was older; he was the Doctor. They were younger; they were..... servants. Most of them even enjoyed doing things for him. Life was good.
Now having all these little serv... students. He was very lazy. He was so lazy that he rarely took showers. Not only did he rarely take showers, but he rarely, if ever, brushed his teeth either. As a result, it was said that his foul breath could topple a full-grown elephant. The last thing that you need to know about him is that his first name Harry was not just a name. It was a lifestyle. His beard, his side burns, the top of his, the sides of his head, the back of his head, his ears and even his nose! were absolutely, totally, completely covered in hair. He easily could have mistaken for the distant cousin of an orangutan or gorilla. But all these faults aside, he was as I told you, perfectly happy. Happy with the hole in the big toe of his sock and happy with the two day old tuna sandwich that had been left sitting on his desk. That was until the day he met Schnozimo.
Schnozimo did not care one little iota about Doc Harrison. He didn't even know of Doc Harrison. Now, he may not have been the happiest about everything in his life like the Doc, but he was still happy. He knew that his teeth were a touch crooked. Okay, okay, they were terribly crooked. He had tried braces once and his teeth actually rebelled, twisting the wires themselves until they had become a snaggled mess worse than than a knot of snarled up Christmas lights. Despite his crooked teeth though he was still happy. Even his gargantuan nose that dwarfed his facial features didn't hurt his feelings. After living with it for so long, he even thought of it as refined and distinguished. There was one feature he did have though that was just absolutely perfect. It was so absolutely perfect, that it put all others to shame. The one perfect trait he had that no other could compete with was his perfectly smooth, perfectly colored , perfectly built in all perfect ways, just totally perfect --- tail. Did I mention Schnozimo's a rat? Wait, wait, I know what you're thinking. Perfect rat impossible. And you would be right about there not being a perfect rat. It was his tail that was so perfect. So perfect that all rats near and far marveled in its exquisiteness. It was perfect creamy skin color, as smooth as freshly sanded wood, and as soft as freshly woven silk. He could live with all his other faults knowing that his tale was absolute perfection. He accepted that his other traits were the sacrifice needed to make such a wonderful tail. And as I said he too was happy. Happy, until that frigid January morning of Doc Harrison's Birthday.

Why I began

Have you ever just thought something would be really cool and fun to do as a hobby right before it took on a life of its own. I'm an elementary school teacher and I love the profession for two very specific reasons. Number 1: I love teaching kids and being part of their success as they grow up. Number 2: Summers off!! I like summers off though for a different reason then at least 95% of the other teachers out there. I like having summers off so that I can go learn something new or do something different. How often do you hear of people being fed up with or burnt out on their job? Too often, right? I stay out of that trend mainly because I love my job, but also because I play around with new ideas. Not only am I a 28 year old school teacher, but I have also scooped icecream for Baskin Robbins, sold books for Barnes & Nobles, sold clothes for American Eagle, worked in almost every part of the hotel/resort industry, and become a licensed massage therapist because I thought it was neat. As you can see I have a variety of interests in jobs, but it also stretches out in my personal interests as well. Well for the past 2 years I have been playing with the idea of writing a book and now I have gotten serious into it. Much to the chagrin of my lovely wife, I am not getting a for certain bonus paycheck this summer, outside of my standard teaching salary. I have cut out all of my extra jobs that I love, so that I can focus 8 hours a day on writing. I have high hopes but modest expectations. I hear a lot of encouragement from those around me and that boosts me up. However, I am just as terrified of the difficulties that lie ahead in what I hear is a brutal industry. I am pretty persistent though and I have not totally failed at any task that I have gone though yet. Here's to hoping, and here's to believing in my own ability to accomplish whatever I put my mind to.