Bully's Fantastic Christmas, Part 10

Previously, on Bully's Fantastic Christmas, young Bully the Little Stuffed Bull went Christmas shopping and has had all sorts of mishaps and strange meetings. Want more background? You should first read Parts 1-9, right here! Have you done that? Good! Now read on...

And now it's time for a very short installment in our Christmas serial, but don't worry, Bully-boosters—parts eleven and twelve will be much longer, and they're coming next Monday and Tuesday to finish off the story just in time for, uh, five days before Christmas. So, without further ado, it's today's chapter in Bully's Fantastic Christmas, the adventure that comes with this iron-clad guarantee: no publisher has been fired in the making of this story.

Part 10: These Little Piggies Went Bea, Dee, Vee, All the Way Home

Effie's trotters clattered as she zoomed through the East River tunnel at a speeds so fast Bully could swear he'd heard a sonic boom but which was probably just his heart beating. He let out a short excited squeak and his little button eyes opened wider in fright as a sudden blast of cold moist stale air hit them from behind—the rush of the approaching train. But like a breeze lifts a kite, that wind almost seemed to lift up Effie, and she broke into her fastest sprint yet, and before Bully could even notice the light at the end of the tunnel, together they burst out like a rocket into York Street Station.

Effie leaned back, her trotters skidding and sparking against the floor, and with a quick jerk and a whirl that would have thrown Bully off her back had he not been holding as tightly as she had told him, she ducked into a dark hole on the side that led under the station's platform, a hole barely big enough for them, only a good three or four seconds before the train blasted into the station, its huge wheels grinding to a noisy, screeching halt just inches in front of their noses. "Hmmph!" Effie shook her head in disgust at the train. "A terrible braking job! So sloppy. Who trains these kids anyway?" She turned around, deep into the hole, and trotted into the darkness.

"Where are we going?" Bully squeaked. "I want to go home to Brooklyn!"

"And so you shall, dear," Effie said wearily, "but you've got to give me a few minutes to catch my breath. And I have to check in on someone. Don't worry," she noted Bully's anxious expression, "I'll have you home in time for getting all your Christmas gifts."

Yeah, thought Bully downheartedly. But not for giving them.

They moved through the darkness for a long time, Effie walking in silence, still breathing heavily from her exertion. Just when Bully thought they must have been walking halfway to Queens or maybe even the Bronx, the tunnel widened out and they emerged into a small cave. It was cool in here, and Bully clutched his duffel coat around him and shivered a little. It was only dimly lit from a grate in the ceiling above, but the change in light was so dramatic to Bully after the darkness of the tunnel that he couldn't see anything at first, until at last his eyes adjusted to the point where he could see six bright pinpoints of light in the shadows.

He blinked at them.

"Mom!" A voice came from directly between and just below one of the pairs of pinpoints, and before Bully could blink a second time, three orange piglets, no bigger than Nerf footballs and twice as bouncy, leapt out of the darkness and crowded around Effie.

"Mom mom mom mom mom!" they squeaked, leaping and jumping and bounding and dancing, and Effie kissed each one of them and nuzzled them with her snout.

"Hello dears," she cooed lovingly, and nudged her snout at Bully. "I would like you all to meet our guest. This is Bully. Bully, these are my piglets: Bea, Dee, and Vee."

"Hi Bully!" the three piglets.

"Hi hi hi!" Bully said, from left to right.


The story will continue in the much-longer part eleven on Monday, and no fair revealing the ending in the comments about what's gonna happen! G'wan, don't ruin it for everybody!