Into the Badger Set
A short story by Misora Hunter

In the early hours of a very ugly Thursday morning, eyes as gray as the skies above blinked open. Long brown fingers brushed wavy bangs away from eyes still glazed with sleep as a rounded muzzle stretched wide in a yawn which displayed every single sharp canine tooth. The sleeper pushed herself up into a sitting position, sending the covers tumbling as she gazed outside. “Hmm,” her lips came together in a small pout as the clouds reflected themselves across her eyes, “kinda dismal out today… Oh, well, ‘in like a lion’ and all that.” A smooth but nonetheless prominent southern drawl slide from her mouth as she rose from the bed, “I swear the nights are getting’ shorter on me,” she said as she stretched deeply.
The house was quiet and empty as she wandered the hallways, but that was natural, she was always the first up. Scratching her floppy ear as she poured herself some coffee, she yawned again and gazed out the window; rainy days always made her feel sleepy and listless. A small warbler bird popped out of the clock above the stove announcing the hour, and she traced the blaze between her eyes, then down her nose as she wondered what to make for breakfast. “Feels like a sausage and grits mornin’ to me,” she said deciding something warm and mostly liquid would hit the spot on what was shaping up to be an absolutely frightening day. This last was punctuated by a flash of lightning, followed by a loud clap of thunder.
“Oh, go on with all your blusterin’,” she stuck her tongue out at the window as she retrieved the items necessary for what she had decided. As she was putting the finishing touches on breakfast, she heard the sleepy shuffling of the remaining denizens.
The first to arrive was a bubbly German Shepherd who took a deep breath in through her nose, “sausage, grits, and coffee. Yum!” She immediately sat down and attacked her breakfast. “Good Morning, Peaches,” she added quickly.
Peaches smiled, “hungry, Ginger darlin’?”
“Starved,” the shepherd replied as she swallowed a rather large bite of sausage, “last night’s raid may as well have been in a swamp.”
“Grits? You’ve got to be kidding me,” a dark canine with carved features stepped into the kitchen, “have you ever told us exactly what a ‘grit’ is?”
“Are you ever not a complete grouch in the morning? Why not say ‘thank you’ to someone who’s worked so hard to make sure you have something warm to eat?” A soft voice from the hallway wafted into the room.
The latest addition to those in the kitchen stuck her head back into the hallway, “because it may be warm, but I have no idea what it is; it may not even be food. And no, I am always a grouch at this hour.” She took her seat as a purely white canine stepped into the kitchen shaking her head, “you morning people make me sick.”
“Good mornin’, Pepper, Salt,” Peaches nodded first at the dark, then the white.
“There’s no such thing,” Pepper rested her chin in her hand and began playing with her grits.
“Good morning, Peaches,” Salt replied taking her seat.
“Well, I’m thankful,” said a very clearly male voice as a black tiger with silver stripes stretched and stepped into the kitchen, “morning, all.”
A rather broken chorus of, “morning, Tiger,” met this and the feline took his seat as well.
It wasn’t long before these four left the house for the day leaving Peaches alone with her thoughts… and the dust bunnies. “It’s D-Day for all ya’ll little pests,” she said arming herself with a dust mask and a vacuum.
About 3 hours later, every dust bunny trying to hide under furniture met a swift death. Coming full circle in the living room, she mimed cocking the vacuum hose, then got down on her knees to eradicate the one the size of a small badger she had spotted yesterday that made her decide to go on a rampage today.
It was there, alright; and was it just her imagination, or did it actually have teeth? Either way, she brandished the vacuum hose at it. The mass of dust, which was beginning to look more and more like a badger, moved back and snarled at her. Blinking, she stared it down; imagination or no, she wasn’t about to stand for an uppity dust badger. Scooting farther under the couch, she edged the end of the vacuum hose toward it. It snarled again, then vanished. She rubbed her eyes to be sure; yes, it was very clearly not there anymore, “but then, where did the little bugger scamper off tooooooooooooooooooo?!"
The area under the couch vanished just as quickly as the dust badger had, causing Peaches to fall through an immaculately clear…. purple sky?!
“Dear Lord, where on Earth am I?” the fact that she hadn’t stopped falling for several moments seemed to dull her to the actuality that she was still falling. She could see the wondrously lush fields of ocean blue grass spread out before her. Rolling hills in the shape of cinnamon twist donuts dotted the landscape and everywhere about bright yellow, pink-striped trees etched themselves into the ground.
Said ground began to rush up at her with increasing velocity, reminding her that she was indeed still falling and it was then she remembered to scream, long and loud. She saw some kind of commotion below her and saw a troupe of green badgers running around beneath her with a large net. It was a horribly uncoordinated effort as half the time, the badgers just tripped over themselves or got tangled in the net.
Just as she was sure they would never get it up in time and she was going to become a pile of goo on the ground, the badgers ran round in a wide circle. They spread the net just as far as it would go, and she landed directly in the middle. The net collapsed in on her and dragged all of the badgers along with it. Close up, she could see that they weren’t much larger than the one she had chased under the couch.
As the badgers tumbled around in their efforts to get off of her and out of the net, Peaches looked around, “all this was under that ratty ol’ couch this whole time?” Her mouth hung open as she gazed in all directions. That is, until she felt a very urgent tugging on her backside; the badgers were trying to get her off of the net. “Oh!” she crawled off, “All you had to do was say somethin’, little darlins, I would have moved.”
The badgers folded up the net and four of them carried it away, the rest remained and stared at her. After a while it began to get creepy, so Peaches stood, “it’s been swell, little fellas, but I should be getting on home.”
Immediately the badgers whipped themselves into frenzy. Several came running up out of the blue grass with ropes. Before Peaches could react, the badgers had her roped down and lying flat on her back. As they worked studiously to stake her to the ground, she began to struggle, “now, see here. What is the meanin’ of all of this?”
One badger with an overly large crown on his tiny head crawled up onto Peaches’s rather ample chest. He then tried to climb on the very top, slipped, and fell back down. “Try coming around, darlin’,” Peaches sighed.
Looking very flustered, the King Badger crawled up her arm and stood on her clavicle, “Monster!” he proclaimed.
“Wouldn’t that be ‘monstress’? Is there a girl form of monster?” Peaches wondered absentmindedly.
“Don’t ignore me when I’m ranting at you!” the King Badger jumped up and down, clearly upset, “for too long, behemoth, you have harangued myself and my followers! What have you to say for yourself before your punishment is carried out?”
“Punishment? Now, what in the world could I have done to ya’ll?” Peaches struggled some more, but to no avail, “I thought ya’ll lived under this here couch?”
“We live under no couch!” the little badger stamped his foot.
“You think ya’ll could find something other than my windpipe to take your anger out on?” Peaches coughed.
“Shush! I’ve had enough of you!” King Badger motioned to several other badgers, “let the punishment commence!”
Each of the badgers produced a disturbingly ugly bird with what looked like very nasty teeth and rushed her. Expecting it to hurt, she was surprised to feel a tickling sensation; the teeth of the birds were so very tiny they did not penetrate her thick fur. She tried not to laugh as she realized the severity of the act but it wasn’t long before she was fighting the restraints from laughter, not pain.
“STOP!” King Badger yelled. All Badgers stopped, “who do you think you are to laugh at our kingdom’s most feared tortures?!”
“I think,” Peaches said, trying to catch her breath, “that I’m Peaches Collisky. I also think I’m a bit big for ya’ll tiny birds there. And I think that I deserve to know what have I done to upset you?”
“You are the wielder of the Great Suck in the Sky. And don’t bother to deny it!” King Badger stamped his tiny foot again.
“The Great Suck? Oh, the vacuum cleaner? Ya’ll turn into dust bunnies when you come up? Well, don’t that beat all?” Peaches shifted slightly to move the King’s foot from her neck, “Listen, sugar, what if, instead of punishing me with those biting birds ya’ll got, I find you a nice place to live away from the Great Suck?”
“You would rid us of the Great Suck?” tiny little badger eyes blinked up at her from all directions.
“Let’s just say I’ve got his ear, hmm? So, how about little fellas?”
“RELEASE THE PRISONER!” King Badger bellowed and all the little badgers busily set about freeing her.
“You got quite a set of lungs on you, your tiny majesty,” Peaches said as he jumped down and she sat up.
“Royal Heritage,” King Badger puffed himself up, “Leviathan Peaches, as a pact of your promise to free our world from the Great Suck, please accept this gift.” And with this several badgers carried out a banana just her size and presented it to her.
“Why, thank you, your majesty,” she took the banana and bowed her head, “I will keep my promise… just as soon as ya’ll show me the way outta here.” True to their word, the badgers showed her the way out of the lands with purple skies above and ocean blue grass below until she finally made it back to her own home.
Later that night Peaches had dinner waiting on the other four denizens and during dinner she very animatedly told them the whole story. “And that was my adventure in the land of the green dust badgers who live under the couch. Pleasant dreams, ya’ll.” With this, she went off to bed.
“You believe it?” Pepper was the first to speak.
“I’m not entirely sure I do or don’t,” Tiger shook his head.
“Stranger things have happened?” Salt offered.
“Well, the couch is gone,” Ginger noticed, “you think it means anything?”
Tiger shrugged, “who knows?”
Peaches slid under the covers of her warm bed, smiling to herself. She had gone out that day and bought a very heavy valance cover for the couch to protect the land of the Dust Badgers from idle winds and interlopers, then moved it up to the attic where the “Great Suck” would never bother them again. A deeply contented sigh escaped her lips as she closed her eyes, and the moon peeked through the clouds as she slipped away into dreamland.

THE END