Work Text:
The Battle Of Brushy Campground
by Sue Rand
Twas a gloomy night, and black
when the snails launched their attack
on the campers who'd invaded their campground.
Campers' tents got in the way
Campfires smoked and smoked all day
and their sleeping bags made mountains all around.
Snails had trouble getting out!
Couldn't find their way about,
every crawlway blocked with stacks and piles of gear.
Snails grew thinner, and yet thinner
missing luncheon, and then dinner
took them hours just to get from there, to here!
Now snails are a friendly folk,
quick to laughter, fond of joke,
but they'll only take so much and then they're through.
What with one thing and the next -
It was the smoke that had them vexed!
It parched them, so they couldn't make their glue.
They'd already tried protesting,
tried hinting, tried suggesting
campers leave. But all their protests were ignored!
Snails had marched (minding their manners),
through the campground, carrying banners,
But the campers only sat there looking bored.
They'd had campers up to here.
All those empty cans of beer!
Campers' trash, and fires, and obstacles, and leaks!
They'd had campers to the armpits
what to call them? "I think 'smarm' fits,"
Snarled one snail who hadn't seen his mate for weeks.
"With these campers we've been toying.
We must make ourselves annoying
If we want to drive them out for good this time.
The situation, you'll admit,
Calls for measures desperate.
And don't say we've no weapons, we've our slime!
Then the snails gathered in force
And after much discourse
And loud argument, they came up with a Plan.
All agreed, they would prevail.
"We will fight," vowed every snail,
"Till our slime cells dry beneath us!" - to a man.
Twenty snails set out togther
In the nastiest kind of weather
From their home beneath the campground's one restroom.
Twenty snails marching en masse
Making tracks across the grass,
On to victory! Or on to meet their doom.
On the snails crawled, on and on,
Till their glue was almost gone
Over campers' gear piled high and broad, and deep.
Over pots and pans and pie lids
They crawled over campers' eyelids
And stuck them all together in their sleep.
Then when all their slime was finished;
When their glue they'd quite diminished,
When with truth each snail could say" "I've given
all I have!"
With the dauntless deed accomplished
Twenty snails departed. Promptish.
Fled back to their homes beneath the campground's lav.
But their hopes all died a-borning
with the coming of the morning,
For the campers all undaunted, only washed everything clean.
Then as one they drew in breath -
Yelled as one, "To all snails, DEATH!"
They shook their fists and then, friends, they turned MEAN.
The sight of snails they didn't mind
Nor the tracks they left behind,
Nor even slime upon clothes campers' wore.
They'd have granted snails their spaces,
If they'd just stayed in their places,
But slime upon their faces made them sore.
Then the campers unabated
Decisively retaliated.
With something white and nasty from their shelves.
All the salt campers could spare
Campers sprinkled everywhere,
But most terminally, on the snails themselves.
This salt the campers poured
Simply could not be ignored.
Nor could the snails escape it - my friends, these
are the facts:
Quick as winking that salt dried them
every snail. Oh, woe betide them!
And melted them completely, in their tracks.
Cried the snail who'd lost his mate
"This is no time for debate.
"It's difficult, but somewhere, friends, I think we might have erred."
As he spoke there came a sighing,
A "So-long" -ing and "Goodbye!" -ing,
The saddest sound I think I've ever heard.
Then the campers all rejoiced
To see snails reduced to moist
mounds of shells and gluely jelly drying quickly in the sun.
"They won't bother us again,"
said the women and the men,
while their children cried, "Oh, too bad! That was FUN!"
Sure the snails had all been bested,
for a time the campers rested.
Went back to playing baseball, and ping pong.
Smug as owls campers retreated
Thinking all the snails defeated,
But in this, I'm glad to say, they were quite wrong.
For in that very same campground...
Lived snails campers weren't aware of
hadn't seen a hide nor hair of.
Encased in tiny eggs together, buried in the ground they lay.
Late that night there came a scratching,
as the infants began hatching.
The tide, my friends, it turned. That very day.
Having hatched, the infants crawled out
(Unafraid of being bawled out:
They'd no parents left to punish them or to scold when they were bad)
On the campground they descended
Totally unsuperintended
Bent on play. And oh, my, what a time they had!
In the morn when campers got up
went to heat the coffee pot up,
They took one look and then fell back, alarmed.
They saw snails doing half-gainers
Into Tupperware containers,
(filled with jello, so of course they were not harmed).
Infant snails did the Watusi
on their melons plump and juicy,
the hot dog buns and hot dogs they had stuck together fast.
Snails crawled over sliced tomatoes
tunneled through the mashed potatoes.
What a sight! Camper just stood there, flabberghast.
Everywhere they looked snails clustered
in the catsup and the mustard,
Each table wore a coat of snail glue, sticky, friends, and thick.
Snails in their potato salad
Turned the campers' faces pallid
And made them feel most violently sick.
Then without much more ado
Campers hastily withdrew,
Loaded up their cars and off they went in streaks.
In a body they all fled
Though they'd just got out of bed.
They didn't even stop to lace their sneaks.
Nor were they seen again.
Not the women, nor the men.
They just picked up the gear and toodle-ooed.
If there's one thing campers hate,
simply will not tolerate,
It's any sort of tampering with their food.
Thus through their innocent play
Those young snails won the day.
Brought peace to Brushy Campground's hills and dales.
And today if you should go there,
You won't find much grief and woe there
But you will find lots and lots of happy snails.
Regards, Susan