By @naomimrshl

Masingita and Donald

"How did this happen?" Masingita muttered underneath her trunk.

"What? What did you say? I can't hear you inside this trap!"

"I said" Masingita replied, her fear and anger evident in the irate tones of her labored speech. At first, the cumbersome trunk had been almost impossible to use. But, after a few days, it was possible for her to employ it as a sort of wiggley loudspeaker.

"I said! How did this happen? What did you do?"

Donald, struggling in the embarrassing effort to try and still the nervous twitches of his tail, hollered through the mat of dry, yellowed text that held his upper body swaddled in dusty pages.

"I think that the answer to that question must be obvious", he snared sarcastically, " you're right! You've been right for weeks!
Miss 'I-can-steer-a-canoe-as- well-as-you-can!'

" Well, I could!" Masingita bellowed.
" If I'd left it up to you, we would still be out there in the middle of the lake paddle'n in circles! Oh! I wish we had never met!

Now look at us, trapped here on an old bookshelf with that ridiculous telescope!"

Don sighed and took as deep a breath, through his naval, as best he could.

" I keep trying to kick my rear end out, but you just had to have an elephant!... Short, and stubby legs!... "

She heard him snort and felt the books, that held them tightly, shiver against her ribs.

" It's a fine and proper pickle of a mess you've caused! I've lost my beautiful nose, and you're an ass of a stuck pachyderm! "

For Joe

a tent pole
one sock
a star sapphire